Page 85survival times of patients with carcinoma of the colon, rectum, stomach, breast
and lung.
Altogether 10,226 cancer patients were involved in this long-term study,
including 1668 patients treated with Iscador and 8475 who had taken neither
Iscador nor any other mistletoe product (control patients).
The outcomes were very good. The patients who took Iscador survived 4.2
years, on average; the control group 3.05 years. That’s a 40% improvement—
better than most chemo! (remember chemo success is NOT judged by survival
times but by tumor shrinkage).
[Altern Ther Health Med. 2001 May-Jun;7(3):57-66, 68-72, 74-6 passim. Use of
Iscador, an extract of European mistletoe (Viscum album), in cancer treatment:
prospective nonrandomized and randomized matched-pair studies nested within
a cohort study. Grossarth-Maticek R, Kiene H, Baumgartner SM, Ziegler R].
Most recent
A new study, published Dec 25th 2008, along with two other related papers, in
the European Journal of Integrative Medicine, showed much the same thing (not
quite such good survival).
Renatus Ziegler, a research scientist at Institute Hiscia in Arlesheim, Switzerland
and co-author Ronald Grossarth-Maticek studied cervical and ovarian cancer
patients to see how they might benefit in the long run if fermented mistletoe
extracts, such as Iscador, were added to their treatment regimes.
Over the course of a few decades, cancer patients who received mistletoe
preparations lived an average of half a year longer and experienced reduced drug
reactions, could better withstand chemotherapy, and had prolonged remission
periods.
So the best take-home for this recent study is that it definitely prolongs survival
but also improves the quality of life.
On this note, I found a 2005 paper studying the immune system of ear, nose
and throat carcinoma patients treated with radiation and chemotherapy that
was interesting in the context. It found that adverse effects of radiotherapy and
chemotherapy on the microcirculation and the immune system were significantly
decreased and reconstitution processes were accelerated by complementary