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
"Claims that ozone is effective against cancer are contained mainly in the promotional literature of proponents or in reports that have not been published in peer-reviewed journals." (CA)
"Ozone is not recommended because: 1. The idea that ozone is effective in treating cancer has never been tested scientifically. 2. Ozone is known to be extremely chemically active and is a toxic substance in humans. 3. The safety of injected ozone and its long-term toxic effects are unknown. There is no reason to believe that if ozone is found safe for use in water or blood products outside the body it can be safely injected directly into the body. 4. There are no credible scientific reports showing benefit of ozone." (Ozone)
"Since ozone, like hydrogen peroxide, produces highly reactive, oxygen-containing radicals, the same cautions should apply as with peroxide compounds." (CA)
Description/ Source/ Components
Ozone "is formed when an electric spark or ultraviolet (UV) light splits an oxygen molecule [O2] into two highly reactive oxygen atoms. Each of these combines with intact oxygen to form the triatomic ozone, O3." (Green)
"Ozone is a highly active form of oxygen." (Ontario)
"Ozone gas might be bubbled directly into the patient's blood; it might be bubbled into blood taken from the patient after which the blood would be re-infused; it might be bubbled into a solution to be used in an enema, colonic irrigation, or douche; or it might be pumped directly into the rectum." (Green)
History
"Two Germans, Seigfried Rilling, MD, and Renate Viebahn, PhD, have written many papers on ozone therapy, as well as a book, The Use of Ozone in Medicine, the most recent and complete treatise on the topic." (CA)
"Joachim Varro, MD, another German physician, has used ozone as an adjunct to conventional treatment of cancer." (CA)
"The Ozone Institute, located in Miami, maintains a nation-wide network of physicians who treat cancer and other diseases with oxymedicine. The institute is headed by Lucas Boeve, a former US Army major who has an engineering degree from West Point and an MBA from Adelphi University." (CA)
"Two other organizations that promote ozone therapy are the International Ozone Association and the Medical Society for Ozone Therapy." (CA)
Proponent/ Advocate Claims
"Ozone is unstable and splits easily into two atoms; one stable oxygen molecule and one atom of oxygen... These single oxygen atoms, according to oxygen therapy advocates, provide oxygen that the body uses both to prevent diseases from starting and to fight diseases already present in the body." (Cassileth)
"Exposure to ozone caused a decrease in the number of tumors per lung in urethane-treated mice, in a dose-dependent manner." (Last)
Proponents claim that ozone "can bypass the blood streams and respiratory passages and be immediately effective in the cell. It rebuilds the cell potential, potassium and sodium pump, and reactivates the breathing ferments." (Varro)
"...ozone therapy greatly reduces pain while increasing energy levels and appetite." (Diamond)
"Autohaemotherapy, involving bland treatment ex vivo [outside the body] of blood with ozone and prompt reinfusion into the donor, is a procedure mainly performed in central Europe, which is claimed to have therapeutic value in circulatory disorders, viral diseases and cancer. ...Experience in normal volunteers and in patients, suggests that autohaemotherapy does not cause any side-effects and gives a sense of well-being in about 20% of patients." (Bocci)
Professional Evaluation/ Critique
"Little information in the published, peer-reviewed literature is available on the use of ozone in general in the treatment of cancer, or on the recommended doses and regimen for treatment." (U.S. Congress)
Toxicity/ Risks
In a study, Fischer-344/N rats were exposed to ozone by inhalation for 2 years. "Mild site-specific toxic lesions characteristic of ozone exposure persist in the nasal passage and lung throughout the lifetime of the rate with continued ozone exposure." (Boorman)
"Ozone inhalation causes injury to the respiratory epithelium, particularly at the terminal and respiratory bronchioles and the alveolar ducts (also called the centriacinar regions)." (Mustafa) (Donaldson)
"Adverse effects associated with intravenously administered ozone can include phlebitis (inflammation of a vein), circulatory depression, chest pain, shortness of breath, fainting, coughing, flushing, cardiac arrhythmias, and gas bubbles. Rectal administration of ozone can lead to inflammation of the lower intestinal tract... ozone in high concentrations can cause severe inflammation of the lung tissues and even coughing up of blood." (Diamond)
References
Bocci V. Autohaemotherapy after treatment of blood with ozone. A reappraisal. J Int Med Res 1994;22:131-144.
Boorman GA, et al. Toxicology and carcinogenesis studies of ozone and ozone 4-(N-nitrosomethylamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone in Fischer - 344/N rats. Toxicologic Pathology 1994 Sept-Oct;22(5):545-554.
CA (Anonymous). Questionable methods of cancer management: hydrogen peroxide and other 'hyperoxygenation' therapies. CA: a Cancer Journal for Clinicians 1993;43:47-56.
Cassileth BR. Alternative medicine handbook: a complete reference guide to alternative and complementary therapies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1998:193-196.
Diamond WJ, et al. An alternative medicine definitive guide to cancer. Tiburon: Future Medicine Publishing, Inc., 1997:925-926.
Donaldson K, et al. Leukocyte-mediated epithelial injury in ozone-exposed rate lung. Research Report - Health Effects Institute 1991 October;44:1-27.
Green S. Oxygenation therapy: unproven treatments for cancer and AIDS. Sci Rev Alt Med 1998;2:6-12.
Last JA, et al. Modification by ozone of lung tumor development in mice. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1987 Jan;78(1):149-154.
Mustafa MG, et al. Pulmonary carcinogenic effects of ozone. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1988;534:714-723.
Ontario Breast Cancer Information Exchange Project. Guide to unconventional cancer therapies. 1st ed. Toronto: Ontario Breast Cancer Information Exchange Project, 1994:242-247.
Ozone. BCCA Cancer Information Centre search file 1121G.
U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. Unconventional cancer treatments. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office 1990 Sept:113-114.
Varro J. Ozone application in cancer cases. (BCCA Cancer Information Centre search file 1121G)
Revised February 2000