Prospective Controlled Cohort Studies on Long-Term Therapy of Cervical Cancer Patients with a Mistletoe Preparation (Iscador®)

Abstract

Mistletoe preparations such as Iscador are commonlyused in complementary medication for many cancer indications,particularly solid cancers. The efficacy of this complementarytherapy is still controversial. Objective: Does longtermtherapy with Iscador show any effect on survival, tumorprogression and psychosomatic self-regulation of patients withcervical cancer? Patients and Methods: Prospective recruitmentand long-term follow-up was carried out in 3 controlled cohortstudies: In a randomized matched-pair study (19 pairs), cervicalcancer patients with distant metastases and no mistletoe therapywere matched for prognostic factors. By paired random allocation,one of the patients was recommended mistletoe therapyby the attending physician. In 2 non-randomized matched-pairstudies, cervical cancer patients without (102) and with (66)metastases, who already received mistletoe therapy, werematched with control patients without Iscador therapy. Results:For survival, the non-randomized studies showed significanteffects in favor of Iscador therapy: hazard ratio (HR) estimateand 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.23 (0.14-0.39) and 0.37(0.17-0.80), respectively. An effect of long-term Iscador therapyon tumor progression was not seen. Psychosomatic self-regulationin the Iscador group improved significantly within 12months compared with the control group in the randomized aswell as in 1 non-randomized study (cervical cancer withoutmetastases): estimate of the median difference and 95% CI: 0.70(0.15-1.05) and 0.25 (0.15-0.35), respectively. Conclusion: Iscadormay have the effect of prolonging overall survival of cervicalcancer patients. In the short term, psychosomatic self-regulationincreases more markedly under complementary Iscadortherapy than under conventional therapy alone.