Journal of the Society for Integrative Oncology
-
In Europe, patients with colorectal carcinoma (CRC) frequently receive mistletoe extracts to improve quality of life and survival. This study was designed to evaluate supportive treatment with mistletoe extract Iscador (ISC) in nonmetastatic CRC patients under routine clinical conditions and to create well-founded hypotheses for future prospective clinical studies. The design of a multicenter, controlled, retrospective, observational cohort study with parallel groups met the Good Epidemiological Practice rules. ⋯ The DFS hazard ratio of 0.60 (p = .013) suggests a survival benefit in ISC patients versus controls. ISC was well tolerated without life-threatening ADRs, drug interactions, or tumor enhancement. These results suggest a beneficial effect of supportive care ISC therapy within AT protocols and long-term ISC treatment in stage I-III CRC patients, particularly improvement in AT-ADRs and symptoms and possible extension of DFS.
-
Bark extracts from the Amazonian rain forest tree Geissospermum vellosii (pao pereira), enriched in alpha-carboline alkaloids have significant anticancer activities in certain preclinical models. Because of the predominance of prostate cancer as a cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality for men of Western countries, we preclinically tested the in vitro and in vivo effects of a pao pereira extract against a prototypical human prostate cancer cell line, LNCaP. When added to cultured LNCaP cells, pao pereira extract significantly suppressed cell growth in a dose-dependent fashion and induced apoptosis. ⋯ Tumor growth was suppressed by up to 80% in some groups compared with tumors in vehicle-treated mice. However, we observed a striking U-shaped dose-response curve in which the highest dose tested (50 mg/kg/d) was much less effective in inducing tumor cell apoptosis and in reducing tumor cell proliferation and xenograft growth compared with lower doses (10 or 20 mg/kg/d). Although this study supports the idea that a pao pereira bark extract has activity against human prostate cancer, our in vivo results suggest that its potential effectiveness in prostate cancer treatment may be limited to a narrow dose range.