Mistletoe and solid tumors

http://defeatosteosarcoma.org/2010/07/mistletoe-and-solid-tumors/#comment-210

Mistletoe and solid tumors

http://defeatosteosarcoma.org/2010/07/mistletoe-and-solid-tumors/#comment-210

Mistletoe and solid tumors

One of the most obvious differences in the practice of oncology in the United States and in Europe is the differing attitude towards mistletoe (Viscum album). European oncologists have used extracts of mistletoe for the past 90 years and such usage is no longer controversial there. By some estimates, 40 percent of French (Simon 2007) and up to 60 percent of German cancer patients receive this botanical extract (Schönekaes 2003). On the other hand, the use of Iscador and other mistletoe extracts is virtually unknown in the United States. Both Europe and the US have well trained and highly competent oncology communities, yet they differ profoundly on this, as well as a number of other issues concerning cancer treatment. This difference is a vivid illustration of the effects of cultural norms on medical practice (Payer 1998).
Iscador is an extract of the white berries of the mistletoe plant, an unusual evergreen plant that grows as a kind of parasite in trees across Europe. Globular mistletoe is a familiar sight in Germany, especially in the winter when it stands out in the bare branches of various deciduous trees. Mistletoe has a fascinating history. According to Roman authors, mistletoe was used medicinally by Celtic priests, who gathered it using golden scythes (to avoid contaminating the specimens). Much later, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the founder of Anthroposophical Medicine, introduced as a cancer treatment (Steiner 1985).
The key question is whether mistletoe has anticancer effects or not. If it does not, then European doctors should stop using it (or recognize it as a placebo). If it does work, then American oncologists should adopt it as a useful adjunctive therapy. (No one I know regards it as a cure).
Earlier this year, I discussed several positive studies with mistletoe. Since then, several additional studies have added weight to the pro-mistletoe argument. Jessica Burkhart, Stephan Baumgartner, et al. of the University of Bern, Switzerland, investigated the effects of mistletoe on the adverse effects of the drug cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan) in cell line studies. The article appeared in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine in May-June 2010. The experiment involved normal white blood cells (peripheral blood mononuclear cells, or PBMCs) as well as a T-cell leukemia Jurkat cell line. Cells were first pre-incubated with mistletoe extract. Then a form of cyclophosphamide was added. After that, mitochondrial activity and replication were both measured.
The results were that mistletoe extract “strongly stimulated” healthy PBMCs but not malignant Jurkat cells. The level of activity of these cells was doubled by the addition of mistletoe (197 percent with the lower dose and 225 percent with the higher dose). In addition, mistletoe partially protected healthy PBMCs, but not malignant cells, from the damage inflicted by cyclophosphamide.
This is further scientific confirmation of the purported uses of mistletoe to reduce the adverse (side) effects of a widely used form of conventional chemotherapy. Mistletoe exerts immune modulating as well as direct anti-proliferative effects. Mistletoe may also increase levels of various anti-cancer cytokines including tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha).

This year, at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, Washington DC scientists presented the results of a phase I clinical trial on the use of European mistletoe extracts and the drug gemcitabine (Gemzar) in patients with advanced solid tumors (Mansky 2010).  Gemcitabine and osteosarcoma The product tested was Helixor (not the more common Iscador). These researchers’ conclusions were highly positive. They reported that the combination had limited toxicity, no alteration in gemcitabine uptake, good tolerability and a clinical benefit in 48 percent of patients. (This contrasts well with previously reported levels of benefit from gemcitabine alone.)
They concluded that the addition of European mistletoe extracts “may allow for use of higher doses” of gemcitabine and that the combination of mistletoe and this drug “warrant further study.”
Studies of this sort continue to chip away at the standard American oncologists’ contention that all useful treatments are routinely employed in US oncology hospitals and that any other ways of treating the disease are without scientific validity. This is simply not true. In fact, American oncologists could learn a great deal from CAM practitioners, if they would recognize that other cultures have different ways of approaching the same problems, and that have something valuable to contribute to the optimal treatment of cancer patients