The role of your cancer health professional is to create an environment of openness and trust, and to help in making informed decisions about alternative/ complementary therapies. Collaboration will improve the safe integration of all therapies during your experience with cancer. The "Summary" and "Professional Evaluation/ Critique" sections of this Unconventional Therapies manual are cited directly from the medical literature, and are intended to help in the objective evaluation of alternative/complementary therapies.
Summary
"DMSO has been proposed as a cancer treatment, although evidence for its efficacy as a cancer treatment is scant to non-existent. DMSO is considered an unproven and ineffective method of treating cancer... Probably the most serious potential danger associated with DMSO is that patients may avoid or delay receipt of medical care in a timely fashion." (Cassileth)
"After careful study of the literature and other information available to it, the American Cancer Society does not have evidence that treatment with DMSO either by itself or combined with laetrile and procaine hydrochloride results in objective benefit in the treatment of cancer in human beings. Lacking such evidence, the American Cancer Society would strongly urge individuals afflicted with cancer not to participate in treatment with DMSO." (CA)
Description/ Source/ Components
DMSO is an industrial solvent made from coal, oil and lignin (similar to turpentine) that is a by-product of paper manufacturing. (Ontario)
When administered to humans, it is absorbed rapidly and produces a garlic-like taste and odour on the breath and skin that can last as long as three days. (Ontario) (Hafner)
"DMSO can be given orally, by injection or by an enema. Treatments usually lasts approximately 4 weeks." (Ontario)
"DMSO can be obtained in health-food stores and other retail and mail-order outlets." (Cassileth)
History
"A by-product of paper manufacturing, it was first synthesized in 1866. As medication, DMSO was used initially in the 1960's. Following FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approval for experimental use, it was applied in topical form to relieve pain, reduce swelling, heal injuries such as muscle strains and sprains, and treat arthritis." (Cassileth)
DMSO was first reported in 1963 by Stanley Jacob, M.D. of the University of Oregon Medical School. Jacob claimed that "DMSO could penetrate skin and produce local analgesia, decrease pain, and promote healing of injured tissue." (Hafner)
"Today, DMSO is approved only to treat interstitial cystitis (a bladder disorder) and as veterinary therapy to reduce swelling in horses and dogs. It is under study for conditions including arthritis, sprains, and a skin disorder known as scleroderma. DMSO is also used to deliver drugs through the skin and to preserve living cells when they are frozen." (Cassileth)
DMSO can travel through the skin and into tissue - Dr. Stanley Jacob suggested that it might become a vehicle for administering cancer drugs into tumours. (CA)
"There is some evidence that DMSO can also protect against radiation damage." (Dunlop)
DMSO received publicity as a painkiller when a U.S. governor reported that his wife, who was dying of bone cancer, had used veterinarian DMSO to relieve her pain. (Dunlop)
Proponent/ Advocate Claims
"DMSO stimulates various parts of the immune system and scavenges hydroxyl radicals, the most potent of free radicals. Since free radicals promote tumor growth, this may be one of the mechanisms by which DMSO interferes with the development of cancer. It may also explain why patients who receive DMSO while undergoing either chemotherapy or radiation (both which generate free radicals in order to kill cancer cells) are far less prone to such side effects as hair loss, nausea, and dry mouth." (Diamond)
"Both DMSO and retinoic acid (RA) were found to be effective in reducing cell growth. DMSO, however, was found to be the stronger inhibitor." (Grunt)
"Dose-dependent protection against tumor development was afforded by allopurinol and DMSO." (Salim)
Supporters believe that DMSO can cut through a protein shell surrounding cancer cells and so may assist medications and the immune system in attacking cancer cells. (Ontario)
It is also believed that DMSO can decrease the energy level of cancer cells and cause them to become benign. (Ontario)
The principal proponent is Mrs. Mildred Miller, owner and administrator of the Degenerative Disease Medical Center in Las Vegas. Mrs. Miller is editor of Preventive Health News, a monthly tabloid that promotes DMSO as a treatment for arthritis, mental illness, emphysema and cancer.
In the past two years, the centre claims to have "treated 30 patients with advanced brain tumors using intravenous and oral laetrile, DMSO and "metabolic therapy", which consists of vitamins, enzymes and coffee retention enemas. They claim that their study indicated that the 30 patients are in various stages of regression. Six patients exhibited decrease in size of the tumor to total remission. This was based on brain scan results. Two have had partial regression based on independent brain scans and two have had prolongation of life." (CA)
Procaine hydrochloride, a local anesthetic, is also given intravenously to cancer patients receiving treatment at the centre because it is believed that it increases the speed with which their pain is relieved. (CA)
Life Extension Products advertises: "DMSO could be one of the most effective anti-cancer agents known, it has the properties desired in any cancer drug and has been used successfully with chemotherapy." (Consumer Reports)
Professional Evaluation/ Critique
"In study with rats, DMSO had no effect when used alone against prostate cancer but, again, when combined with other therapeutic agents, the doses could be lowered and the same effects achieved." (Diamond)
"Some studies have shown that DMSO increases the metastatic [cancer spreading] potential of tumor cells." (Maehara)
"The only approved uses of DMSO in the United States are for treating interstitial cystitis (a rare type of bladder inflammation) and as a veterinary drug to reduce swelling due to trauma in horses and dogs." (Hafner)
An in vitro study (Bentel) showed invasiveness and metastatic potential (potential for the cancer to invade and spread) were enhanced after culture with DMSO.
Toxicity/ Risks
"Industrial-grade DMSO should never be used because contaminants could produce serious reactions." (Hafner)
"Intravenous administration of DMSO may cause damage to liver, kidneys, blood-forming organs and central nervous system." (Ontario)
DMSO may cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, and sedation. (Ontario)
DMSO was found to cause damage to the gastric mucosa. (Sorbye)
Eye changes in experimental animals resulted in the discontinuation of the use of DMSO for human illnesses in the 1960s. (CA)
"Dimethyl sulfoxide causes superficial mucosal damage to the gastric mucosa and increased secretion of fluid into the stomach." (Sorbye)
DMSO could prove fatal if used as a retention enema. As the Life Extension ad stated, DMSO does "take other products with it" as it "passes through body tissue." In the rectum, these "other products" might include bacterial toxins that DMSO could carry through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream.
"For a person who is already weakened by cancer, the effect of the absorbed toxins could be life-threatening." (Consumer Reports)
"Never mix DMSO with any chemical or drug and then apply it to the skin, as the proper DMSO dosage for such a combination unknown and could be harmful, cautions Dr. Callebout." (Diamond)
Costs
"Costs vary between $1,500 and $6,000 U.S. for three weeks of treatment. This price does not include food and lodging. Oral supplements may cost an additional $50 to $400 U.S. per month." (Ontario, 1994)
The period of treatment for cancer at the Degenerative Disease Medical Center is four weeks. The cost of treatment is $4,000. (CA, 1983)
References
Bentel JM, et al. Enhanced invasiveness and metastatic potential of epithelial cell lines cultured in the presence of dimethyl sulphoxide. International Journal of Cancer 1990;46:251-257.
CA (Anonymous). Unproven methods of cancer management: dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). CA: a Cancer Journal for Clinicians 1983;33(2):122-125.
Cassileth BR. Alternative medicine handbook: the complete reference guide to alternative and complementary therapies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1998:161.
Consumer Reports (Anonymous). Foods, drugs, or frauds? Consumer Reports 1985 May:275-279.
Diamond WJ, et al. An alternative medicine definitive guide to cancer. Tiburon: Future Medicine Publishing, Inc., 1997:111,866-67.
Dunlop M. Understanding cancer: an invaluable book for cancer patients and their families. Toronto: Irwin, 1985:108-110.
Grunt THW, et al. Comparative analysis of the effects of dimethyl sulfoxide and retinoic acid on the antigenic pattern of human ovarian adenocarcinoma cells. Journal of Cell Science 1992;103:501-509.
Hafner AW, editor. Reader's guide to alternative health methods. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: American Medical Association, 1993:296-299.
Maehara M, et al. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) increases expression of sialyl Lewis x antigen and enhances adhesion of human gastric carcinoma (NUGC4) cells to activated endothelial cells. International Journal of Cancer 1993;54:296-301.
Ontario Breast Cancer Information Exchange Project. Guide to unconventional cancer therapies. 1st ed. Toronto: Ontario Breast Cancer Information Exchange Project, 1994:271-274.
Salim AS. The permissive role of oxygen-derived free radicals in the development of colonic cancer in the rat: a new theory for carcinogenesis. International Journal of Cancer 1993;53:1031-1035.
Sorbye H, Kvinnsland S, Svanes K. Penetration of N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine to proliferative cells in gastric mucosa of rats is different in pylorus and fundus and depends on exposure time and solvent. Carcinogenesis 1993;14(5):887-892.
Revised February 2000