In 1978, Dr. Ewan Cameron and Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling published a study that reported long-term survival of cancer patients who had undergone intravenous + oral mega-dose (10,000 milligrams) vitamin C therapy. Vitamin C-treated cancer patients lived 20 times longer than a control group. While most patients succumbed to their cancer, intravenous vitamin C therapy outperformed conventional cancer therapy.  By comparison, 0.4% of cancer patients who did not undergo vitamin C therapy survived 1-year versus 22% who had undergone intravenous vitamin C therapy.  [Proceedings National Academy Science 1978]

But still vitamin C cancer therapy was a disappointment for the majority of desperate end-stage cancer patients.

Then over a decade later Drs. Cameron and Pauling published another study, which showed the survival of vitamin C-treated patients averaged 343 days compared to 180 days for conventionally treated controls. Some long-term cures were reported.  [Medical Hypotheses1991]

Modern medicine quickly set out to disprove vitamin C cancer therapy soon after Cameron and Pauling's first published study.  Instead of intravenous delivery of vitamin C as the chosen route of delivery, two published studies used oral doses (10,000 mg/day), which achieved no effect. [New England Journal Medicine 1979; New England Journal Medicine 1985]  Vitamin C therapy for cancer was summarily dismissed.  However, oral dosing is not equivalent to intravenous administration of vitamin C.

But vitamin C advocates were not easy to discourage. Drs. Cameron and Pauling published their book entitled Cancer & Vitamin C in 1981. [Amazon.com]

Reexamination of vitamin C therapy called for

It was later reported that intravenous vitamin C therapy achieves vitamin C blood levels 25-fold higher than oral vitamin C.  This dose and route of administration was toxic to cancer cells but unlike chemotherapy, not toxic to healthy cells.  It safely killed cancer cells by transient generation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which converts to non-toxic water (H2O).    Upon reexamination, a reassessment of vitamin C therapy was called for but there was no impetus to conduct a large human trial then or now. [Journal American College Nutrition 2000; Canadian Medical Assn. Journal 2006]