As a treatment for advanced cancer, shark cartilage fails to benefit patients and its adverse effects lead to poor compliance. A clinical trial published in the July 1, 2005 issue of CANCER (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, finds there was no difference in overall survival or quality of life between patients who received shark cartilage and those who received a placebo. Some experiments have shown that some forms of shark cartilage possess a modest ability to slow the growth of new blood vessels in laboratory cell cultures and in animals, but the effects on humans are not known. Interest in shark cartilage grew after a television news magazine aired a segment in 1993 that showed patients with advanced cancer in Cuba who had gone into remission after being treated with shark cartilage. The results of the study were never published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) later concluded the results of the Cuban study were “incomplete and unimpressive.”
