Anticancer research
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Anticancer research · Nov 2003
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical TrialInfluence of postoperative complementary treatment with lectin-standardized mistletoe extract on breast cancer patients. A controlled epidemiological multicentric retrolective cohort study.
This epidemiological study was performed to evaluate the influence of postoperative complementary treatment with lectin-standardized mistletoe extract (sME) on breast cancer patients. The design (retrolective cohort analysis with parallel groups) and conduct of the study were in agreement with current standards for prospectively randomized clinical trials. A cohort of 1,248 breast cancer patients on postoperative chemo-, radio-, hormone-therapy were studied in 27 randomized centers. ⋯ The rate of sME-associated adverse reactions was 12.8%. All side-effects were mild to moderate, predominantly local skin reactions and self-limiting without therapeutic intervention. Complementary treatment of breast cancer patients with lectin-standardized mistletoe extract (sME) proved to be a well tolerated optimization of standard tumor-destructive therapies, mainly improving quality of life and relapse-free intervals in defined UICC stages.