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Intravenous Ascorbic Acid to Prevent and Treat Cancer-Associated Sepsis?
Journal of Translational Medicine
  • Thomas E. Ichim
  • Boris Minev
  • Todd Braciak
  • Brandon Luna
  • Ron Hunninghake
  • Nina A. Mikirova
  • James A. Jackson
  • Michael J. Gonzalez
  • Jorge R. Miranda-Massari
  • Doru T. Alexandrescu
  • Constantin A. Dasanu
  • Vladimir Bogin
  • Janis Ancans
  • R. Brian Stevens, Wright State University
  • Boris Markosian
  • James Koropatnick
  • Chien-Shing Chen
  • Neil H. Riordan
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2011
Abstract

The history of ascorbic acid (AA) and cancer has been marked with controversy. Clinical studies evaluating AA in cancer outcome continue to the present day. However, the wealth of data suggesting that AA may be highly beneficial in addressing cancer-associated inflammation, particularly progression to systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and multi organ failure (MOF), has been largely overlooked. Patients with advanced cancer are generally deficient in AA. Once these patients develop septic symptoms, a further decrease in ascorbic acid levels occurs. Given the known role of ascorbate in: a) maintaining endothelial and suppression of inflammatory markers; b) protection from sepsis in animal models; and c) direct antineoplastic effects, we propose the use of ascorbate as an adjuvant to existing modalities in the treatment and prevention of cancer-associated sepsis.

Comments

© 2011 Ichim et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DOI
10.1186/1479-5876-9-25
Citation Information
Thomas E. Ichim, Boris Minev, Todd Braciak, Brandon Luna, et al.. "Intravenous Ascorbic Acid to Prevent and Treat Cancer-Associated Sepsis?" Journal of Translational Medicine Vol. 9 Iss. 25 (2011) ISSN: 1479-5876
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/r_stevens/78/