Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer
clinical paper · 1976
LINK
SUMMARY
The founding clinical paper of the case. Reports that 100 terminal cancer patients given supplemental ascorbate (initially 10 g/day intravenously, then orally) at Vale of Leven Hospital, Scotland, survived on average more than four times as long as 1,000 retrospective, non-randomized control patients matched on age, sex, cancer type, and clinical stage from the same hospital. No placebo group, no blinding, no randomization; the 'terminal' designation and comparability of the two groups became the central point of later methodological criticism (see frederick-cancer-gov-iv-vitamin-c-2020). PMID resolved directly on PubMed; title, authors (Cameron, Pauling), journal, volume/issue/pages all match.
NOTES
The paper that launched the cancer-vitamin-C claim into the public record: a real published result, but a retrospective, non-randomized comparison whose apparent four-fold survival benefit later proved not to survive controlled testing (see creagan-moertel-nejm-1979 and moertel-nejm-1985).