ReviewFrontiers in physiology2018
Intravenous Vitamin C for Cancer Therapy - Identifying the Current Gaps in Our Knowledge.
Review in Frontiers in physiology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
65 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 127 citations in OpenAlex.
- Clinical benefits and risks of high-dose intravenous vitamin C: a systematic review.Journal of medicine and life · 2026Pooled it
- Effect of vitamins C and E on cancer survival; a systematic review.Daru : journal of Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Intravenous vitamin C administration to patients with septic shock: a pilot randomised controlled trial.Critical care (London, England) · 2022Trial
- Reactive Oxygen Species in Breast Cancer: From Redox Dysregulation to ROS-Responsive Therapeutics.Cell biochemistry and function · 2026Review
- Beyond redox: vitamin C in signaling, epigenetic regulation and protein modification-relevance to cancer therapy.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Review
- High-Dose Intravenous Vitamin C in Critical Illness: A Translational Exposure-Response Framework for Biomarker-Guided Precision Therapy.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Association of serum vitamin D and serum vitamin C with the risk of melanoma among adults in the United States: a cross-sectional analysis of 2003-2006 and 2017-2018 NHANES data.Journal of clinical biochemistry and nutrition · 2026Article
- Review
- Do Liposomal Vitamin C Formulations Have Improved Bioavailability? A Scoping Review Identifying Future Research Directions.Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology · 2025Article
- Ten-Eleven Translocation Family Proteins: Structure, Biological Functions, Diseases, and Targeted Therapy.MedComm · 2025Review
- Targeting the Glucose-Insulin Link in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Induces Cytotoxic Oxidative Stress and Inhibits Cancer Growth.Cancer research communications · 2025Article
- Pt(IV) Complexes as Anticancer Drugs and Their Relationship with Oxidative Stress.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- The L-Ascorbic Acid Increases Proliferation and Differentiation of Yanbian Cattle Skeletal Muscle Satellite Cells by Activating the Akt/mTOR/P70S6K Signaling Pathway.Food science of animal resources · 2025Article
- The dual role of vitamin C in cancer: from antioxidant prevention to prooxidant therapeutic applications.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Review
- Vitamin C Selectively Inhibits Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma Cell Growth by Suppressing the HIF-1 Pathway.OncoTargets and therapy · 2025Article
- Epigenetics-targeted drugs: current paradigms and future challenges.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
- Vitamin C in the Management of Thyroid Cancer: A Highway to New Treatment?Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- The Use of High-Dose Intravenous L-Ascorbate in Pain Therapy: Current Evidence from the Literature.Pain and therapy · 2024Review
- Vitamin C Supplementation in the Treatment of Autoimmune and Onco-Hematological Diseases: From Prophylaxis to Adjuvant Therapy.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The use of intravenous vitamin C (IVC) for cancer therapy has long been an area of intense controversy. Despite this, high dose IVC has been administered for decades by complementary health care practitioners and physicians, with little evidence base resulting in inconsistent clinical practice. In this review we pose a series of questions of relevance to both researchers and clinicians, and also patients themselves, in order to identify current gaps in our knowledge. These questions include: Do oncology patients have compromised vitamin C status? Is intravenous the optimal route of vitamin C administration? Is IVC safe? Does IVC interfere with chemotherapy or radiotherapy? Does IVC decrease the toxic side effects of chemotherapy and improve quality of life? What are the relevant mechanisms of action of IVC? What are the optimal doses, frequency, and duration of IVC therapy? Researchers have made massive strides over the last 20 years and have addressed many of these important aspects, such as the best route for administration, safety, interactions with chemotherapy, quality of life, and potential mechanisms of action. However, we still do not know the answers to a number of fundamental questions around best clinical practice, such as how much, how often and for how long to administer IVC to oncology patients. These questions point the way forward for both basic research and future clinical trials.
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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.