High-dose vitamin C can boost the cancer-killing effect of chemotherapy in the lab and mice, research suggests.
Given by injection, it could potentially be a safe, effective and low-cost treatment for ovarian and other cancers, say US scientists. Reporting in Science Translational Medicine, they call for large-scale government clinical trials.
Pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to run trials, as vitamins cannot be patented.
Vitamin C has long been used as an alternative therapy for cancer. In the 1970s, chemist Linus Pauling reported that vitamin C given intravenously was effective in treating cancer.
However, clinical trials of vitamin C given by mouth failed to replicate the effect, and research was abandoned.