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Thirty years after Linus Pauling was ridiculed for claiming vitamin C could cure cancer, new research shows high-dose infusions of vitamin C may prolong the lives of people with advanced tumours.
Reporting today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, a team led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health details three cases in which patients with advanced cancer were effectively treated with high-dose intravenous vitamin C.
One 66-year-old woman with an aggressive form of lymphoma, who declined chemotherapy and opted for intravenous vitamin C instead, "remains in normal health 10 years after diagnosis," the team reports.
Patients with untreated Stage 3 diffuse B-cell lymphoma normally have a dismal prognosis. "It appears, nonetheless, that a cure occurred in connection with intravenous vitamin C infusions," the researchers say....

Note: this story also appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald and Montreal Gazette. It appears that those stories may have been longer and thus included more information on the side effects of high dose vitamin C

The original article can be found at: http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=12a6fe3c-d930-4794-aae6-9287f93c9857

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what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

The story mentions that patients with untreated Stage III diffuse B-cell lymphoma have a dismal prognosis. This is true. This is an aggressive yet highly treatable disease. Treatment is considered an emergency, as death can ensue very rapidly. However, these days very few people with this condition would not be treated with standard agents, none of which are mentioned in the article. In fact, 40-50% of these patients can be cured with currently available regimens. These include an older multi-drug chemotherapy regimen, with, more recently, the addition of rituximab, which has been helpful. Patients who fail this treatment often go on to bone marrow transplantation which can be curative.

It would be tragic indeed if someone turned down standard treatment in favour of unproven vitamin C solely on the basis of a few anecdotal reports.

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