Improvement of Quality of Life in Tumor Patients after an Immunomodulatory Treatment with Standardized Mistletoe Lectin and Arabinoxylan Plant Extracts

Abstract

Background: In the last decades a special attention has been focused on the role of disturbed immune balance in the behavioral co-morbidities of tumor patients. The prognostic significance of malignant tumor-induced imbalance in the innate immune system is well known. The innate system uses a limited number of Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRR) to recognize conserved Pathogenic Associated Molecular Pattern (PAMP) structures expressed by microbes but not by host. Growing experiences suggest that the improvement of tumor induced disturbance of immune balance by using standardized plant PAMP like preparations goes often together with a better quality of life (QoL).

Evidence-Based Review of BioBran/MGN-3 Arabinoxylan Compound as a Complementary Therapy for Conventional Cancer Treatment

“…Sixteen articles were excluded with reasons as follows: duplication (5), 11 - 15 not cancer focused (7), 16 - 22 not primary study (3), 23 - 25 and 1 case report article published in Japanese was also excluded. 26 Thirty full-text articles and 2 conference abstracts were included in this review, consisting of 7 in vitro studies; 27 - 33 1 article reporting results from both in vitro and in vivo studies; 34 7 in vivo studies; 35 - 41 6 clinical case reports; 42 - 47 and 11 clinical studies, 48 - 58 with one of them also including case reports of selected follow-up patients. 48 The literature search flow is summarized in Figure 1 .…”

“…Eleven clinical studies were included in this review. Among the 11 clinical studies, 5 are nonrandomized, pre-post intervention studies, 48 , 50 , 51 , 57 , 58 and 6 are randomized controlled trials (RCTs). 49 , 52 - 56 The characteristics of these studies are summarized in Table 4 (nonrandomized studies) and Table 5 (RCTs).…”

“…The QoL improvement effects of MGN-3 were studied by Hajto et al 58 A total of 35 patients with various malignancies were administered a combination of mistletoe lectin and MGN-3 as a complementary therapy for a minimum of 6 months during or after conventional cancer treatment. Patients responded to a custom binary-response questionnaire with 8 questions regarding various aspects of their QoL after treatment, including pain, anxiety, physical activity, appetite, and sleep, reporting a subjective improvement of physical activity and decrease in side effects as the most important benefits of the complementary therapy.…”

“…Patients responded to a custom binary-response questionnaire with 8 questions regarding various aspects of their QoL after treatment, including pain, anxiety, physical activity, appetite, and sleep, reporting a subjective improvement of physical activity and decrease in side effects as the most important benefits of the complementary therapy. 58 …”

Biobran/MGN-3, an arabinoxylan rice bran, enhances NK cell activity in geriatric subjects: A randomized, double‑blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial

“…Biobran/MGN-3 has been shown to be a safe and nontoxic agent in several toxicity studies including: i) the subchronic toxicity study in beagle dogs, the guinea pig antigenicity study, and mutagenicity testing ( 48 , 49 ); ii) the LD50 (lethal dose, 50%) of Biobran/MGN-3 is greater than 36 g/kg; and iii) the Ames test for mutagenicity was negative. Furthermore, studies among cancer patients treated with chemotherapy have shown a marked improvement in appetite and other quality of life (QOL) parameters ( 50 , 51 ).…”