ArticleOncotarget2017
Anthelmintic mebendazole enhances cisplatin's effect on suppressing cell proliferation and promotes differentiation of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
Article in Oncotarget, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- USP5 regulates purine metabolism and represents a therapeutic target in esophageal cancer.Cell death & disease · 2026Article
- Mebendazole Shows Antiproliferative and Antimigratory Effects in Paediatric Low-Grade Glioma Models.Oncology research · 2026Article
- Mechanistic Insights and Clinical Implications of ELK1 in Solid Tumors: A Narrative Review.Cells · 2025Review
- Synergistic inhibition of proliferation and induction of apoptosis in oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma by mebendazole and paclitaxel via PI3K/AKT pathway mitigation.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2025Article
- An Intervertebral Disc (IVD) Regeneration Model Using Human Nucleus Pulposus Cells (iHNPCs) and Annulus Fibrosus Cells (iHAFCs).Advanced healthcare materials · 2025Article
- Critical dysregulated signaling pathways in drug resistance: highlighting the repositioning of mebendazole for cancer therapy.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Review
- The therapeutic potential of repurposed mebendazole, alone and in synergistic combination with ONC201, in the treatment of diffuse midline glioma.American journal of cancer research · 2025Article
- GAPDH suppresses adenovirus-induced oxidative stress and enables a superfast production of recombinant adenovirus.Genes & diseases · 2024Article
- In vitro and in vivo anticancer activity of mebendazole in colon cancer: a promising drug repositioning.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Article
- Emerging Perspectives on the Antiparasitic Mebendazole as a Repurposed Drug for the Treatment of Brain Cancers.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Mebendazole Increases Anticancer Activity of Radiotherapy in Radiotherapy-Resistant Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells by Enhancing Natural Killer Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Review
- Antidiabetics, Anthelmintics, Statins, and Beta-Blockers as Co-Adjuvant Drugs in Cancer Therapy.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2022Review
- Carboxymethyl chitosan prolongs adenovirus-mediated expression of IL-10 and ameliorates hepatic fibrosis in a mouse model.Bioengineering & translational medicine · 2022Article
- Anti-cancer effects of fenbendazole on 5-fluorouracil-resistant colorectal cancer cells.The Korean journal of physiology & pharmacology : official journal of the Korean Physiological Society and the Korean Society of Pharmacology · 2022Article
- HPMA Copolymer Mebendazole Conjugate Allows Systemic Administration and Possesses Antitumour Activity In Vivo.Pharmaceutics · 2022Article
- Double Repositioning: Veterinary Antiparasitic to Human Anticancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Beclin-1/LC3-II dependent macroautophagy was uninfluenced in ischemia-challenged vascular endothelial cells.Genes & diseases · 2022Article
- Reversibly immortalized keratinocytes (iKera) facilitate re-epithelization and skin wound healing: Potential applications in cell-based skin tissue engineering.Bioactive materials · 2022Article
- Anticancer Effect of Benzimidazole Derivatives, Especially Mebendazole, on Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) and Radiotherapy-Resistant TNBC In Vivo and In Vitro.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
28 authors at 9 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is one of the most common and aggressive types of human cancers worldwide. Nearly a half of HNSCC patients experience recurrence within five years of treatment and develop resistance to chemotherapy. Thus, there is an urgent clinical need to develop safe and novel anticancer therapies for HNSCC. Here, we investigate the possibility of repurposing the anthelmintic drug mebendazole (MBZ) as an anti-HNSCC agent. Using the two commonly-used human HNSCC lines CAL27 and SCC15, we demonstrate MBZ exerts more potent anti-proliferation activity than cisplatin in human HNSCC cells. MBZ effectively inhibits cell proliferation, cell cycle progression and cell migration, and induces apoptosis of HNSCC cells. Mechanistically, MBZ can modulate the cancer-associated pathways including ELK1/SRF, AP1, STAT1/2, MYC/MAX, although the regulatory outcomes are context-dependent. MBZ also synergizes with cisplatin in suppressing cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis of human HNSCC cells. Furthermore, MBZ is shown to promote the terminal differentiation of CAL27 cells and keratinization of CAL27-derived xenograft tumors. Our results are the first to demonstrate that MBZ may exert its anticancer activity by inhibiting proliferation while promoting differentiation of certain HNSCC cancer cells. It's conceivable the anthelmintic drug MBZ can be repurposed as a safe and effective agent used in combination with other frontline chemotherapy drugs such as cisplatin in HNSCC treatment.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.