Shark Cartilage, Not a Cancer Therapy

    Shark cartilage, a widely used alternative therapy for cancer, did not help patients with lung cancer live longer, according to the results of one of the first rigorous studies of the approach.

    The studies were presented on Saturday here at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology, where the nation’s cancer doctors usually discuss the latest in chemotherapy and new biotechnology drugs.

    It is relatively unusual for this meeting to highlight alternative therapies, but doctors here said that might be changing. They acknowledge that many of their patients are taking these supplements — widely available in health food stores — and asking them about them. So, they said, well-designed clinical trials are needed to determine whether these approaches are helpful or harmful.


    The shark cartilage clinical trial was mandated by Congress and was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. It tested a shark cartilage extract being developed as a drug by Aeterna Zentaris, a Canadian company.

    Dr. Charles Lu of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the trial’s lead investigator, said there was reason to believe the cartilage might work. Cartilage has been found to contain factors that can impede the formation of blood vessels. And cutting off the blood supply to tumors has already been proven effective with other drugs.

    But in the trial, those who received the shark cartilage extract lived a median of 14.4 months, meaning that half the patients had died by that point. Those who got a placebo had a median survival of 15.6 months.

    The trial involved 384 patients in the United States and Canada with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. The shark cartilage extract was given as a liquid that patients drank twice a day.