Shark
Cartilage
Fails Phase I/II Trial
November 1, '98 They say sharks don't get cancer. No one knows
if this is really true, yet some people with cancer have come to believe
that shark cartilage might help them. Now it looks as though a crude way
of trying to get hold of shark magic, by swallowing shark cartilage in
pill or other marketed form, has no effect at all on prostate cancer.
Claims
for the effects of shark cartilage on cancer are mostly anecdotal, yet
some patients spend upwards of a thousand dollars a month on this remedy.
Dennis Miller, M.D. of the Cancer Treatment Research Foundation, Arlington
Heights, Ill., thinks these patients are wasting their money and may
be reducing their quality of life.
Supposedly
Anti-Angiogenic
Shark cartilage has been said to work by interfering with angiogenesis,
the process by which tumors grow capillaries to create a blood supply
for themselves. Whether indeed it has this effect is not clear as yet.
Anti-angiogenesis agents, of course, are today's silver bullets. Shark
cartilage is an extremely popular alternative to conventional cancer
therapy.
Dr.
Miller ran a clinical trial testing the effects of shark cartilage on
advanced cancer. He and his team found it did not work any better than
giving patients supportive care with no active drug treatment at all
.
How
the Study Was Run
Eight patients with prostate cancer were among the 60 patients in Dr.
Miller's study. This was a standard PhaseI/II trial, testing shark cartilage
for safety and efficacy. All the patients had advanced cancer that resisted
conventional treament. During the trial they took no standard therapy.
They had not taken shark cartilage before.
All
the patients were tested to find out the extent of their disease. They
took tests for immune function at the start of the study and after 6
and 12 weeks of shark cartilage therapy.
The dose of shark cartilage was 1 g/kg daily orally in three divided
doses. Patients were evaluated for side-effects and effects of the drug
on the cancer. They also were rated for quality of life.
Thirteen patients dropped out before the end of the study and were not
available for follow-up and assessment. Of the 47 remaining, 5 were
taken off because of side-effects (mostly nausea, vomiting, constipation).
Twenty-seven out of those 47 patients showed progression of their cancer
(22 by week 6 of the study). Five patients died of progressive disease
while undergoing shark cartilage therapy.
Dr.
Miller says that 10 of patients who stayed on study had stable disease
for 12 weeks or more. But none of them had complete or even partial responses
to the drug. This rate of stable disease (16.7%), he says, is about the
same as is usually found in patients with advanced cancer treated with
supportive care alone. Shark cartilage, Miller says, had no activity in
these patients with advanced-stage cancer and did not help their quality
of life.
Phase
I/II Trial of the Safety and Efficacy of Shark Cartilage in the Treatment
of Advanced Cancer by Denis R. Miller, Gary T. Anderson,
James J. Stark, Joel L. Granick, and DeJuran Richardson Journal
of Clinical Oncology, 16:3649-3655.
up  to top
November 1. Page modified January 10, 2000
PSA
Rising
prostate cancer survivor news
http://www.psa-rising.com
©1998-1999 |
To
contact us or report problems with pages E-mail