Doses of intravenous vitamin C could boost chemotherapy's effectiveness, increasing its ability to kill off cancer cells, according to research HealthDay reported.

Researchers from the University of Kansas found when vitamin C is delivered directly to the human or mouse ovarian cancer cells, it helped kill off those cells while leaving normal cells unharmed, HealthDay reported.

"In cell tissue and animal models of cancer, we saw when you add IV vitamin C it seems to augment the killing effect of chemotherapy drugs on cancer cells," study co-author Dr. Jeanne Drisko, director of integrative medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center, told HealthDay.

For the study, researchers exposed human ovarian cancer cells and mice with induced ovarion cancer to Vitamin C in the lab. In humans, they found that the cells suffered DNA damage and died off, while normal cells were left unharmed. In mice, vitamin C appeared to help chemotherapy drugs either inhibit the growth of tumors or help shrink them.

In a pilot phase clinical trial involving 27 patients, those who received intravenous vitamin C along with their chemotherapy reported less toxicity of the brain, bone marrow and major organs, researchers found. Those patients also appeared to add about nine months to the time before their disease relapsed and progressed, compared with people who only received chemotherapy.

Drisko said the study shows Vitamin C in the bloodstream helps kill cancer cells because it "chemically converts into hydrogen peroxide when it interacts with tumors," HealthDay reported.

"If you can get your blood levels of vitamin C very high, it gets driven into the space around the cancer cells," she explained. "In that space, it's converted into hydrogen peroxide. It's very similar to what our white blood cells do. They create hydrogen peroxide to fight infection."

Researchers said the new findings raise interesting possibilities, but more research needs to be done.