Albendazole
Also called: Albenza.
Last reviewed 2026-09-16. How this works.
Treating cancer Grade D
No human evidence of benefit, or none that survived testing.
Very little has been studied about this worming drug as a cancer treatment in people.
Minimal human cancer data.
The claim
Albendazole is a worming drug licensed for human use. The claim is the one made for the whole benzimidazole group, that a drug which disrupts cell division in a parasite should do the same in a tumour.
What it does
It binds tubulin, as the others in this chapter do. Being licensed for people means its behaviour in a body is better known than fenbendazole's, which is a real difference between the two and not a small one.
The evidence
A search of the trials registry returns no completed study of albendazole in cancer at all. Not a phase 1, not a biomarker study, nothing.1
That is the emptiest result of any search run for this register, and it puts albendazole below fenbendazole rather than above it on evidence, despite being the licensed drug of the two.1
The harm
What has not been looked at
With no completed study of any kind, there is also no human safety data for albendazole in someone with cancer.
Scope: people with cancer.
Established by registry search, ClinicalTrials.gov, query intervention "albendazole", condition "cancer", status completed
, checked 2026-09-16. Result: zero completed studies, so no safety study either.1
What is absent
No completed trial of albendazole in cancer exists in the registry at all.
Scope: any tumour type, any endpoint.
Established by registry search, ClinicalTrials.gov, query intervention "albendazole", condition "cancer", status completed
, checked 2026-09-16. Result: zero completed studies.1
What to ask
Is there any human cancer evidence for albendazole that you would consider meaningful?
The dish-to-person gap
The register records no human pharmacokinetic measurement for albendazole in a cancer setting.
When to call your team — no warning signs are recorded
Whatever you are taking or thinking of taking, the people treating you can only weigh it if they know about it. That is true when nothing has been written down here, and it is most true then.
The register records no warning signs for this entry because no human safety study in a cancer setting has been found to base them on.
Interactions
No interaction between albendazole and a cancer treatment class has been studied in a person. An empty list means nobody has looked.
Nobody having looked is not the same as nothing being there. That is what this line says and all it says.
The whole interaction list, and how to turn it into a pharmacy review request.
Find a trial instead
A recruiting trial is the same decision with monitoring attached.
Search ClinicalTrials.gov for recruiting studies of albendazole
A trial is the same decision with monitoring, a known preparation and a doctor who knows what else you are taking.
References
A search of the ClinicalTrials.gov registry for completed studies of albendazole in cancer, run on 16 September 2026. No completed studies returned.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2/studies?query.intr=albe…
How this was reached: search run during build, via a search run during the content build; not a source the manuscript carries.