Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30247950›Full record

Trial reportJournal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.)

Complementary Treatment with Mistletoe Extracts During Chemotherapy: Safety, Neutropenia, Fever, and Quality of Life Assessed in a Randomized Study.

Florian Pelzer, Wilfried Tröger, Dr Rer Nat

Open access · hybridAbstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.). The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
19citing papers in PubMed, 5 pooled it
1.5field-weighted citation impact, top 17% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

19 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 40 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
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  3. Systematic analysis of mistletoe prescriptions in clinical studies.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2023
    Pooled it
  4. Cancer-related fatigue in patients treated with mistletoe extracts: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2022
    Pooled it
  5. Pooled it
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  13. Phytochemical Profile and Antioxidant Capacity ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022
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  17. Impact of Oncological Therapy andIntegrative cancer therapies
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Florian Pelzer1 Society for Cancer Research, Hiscia Institute , Arlesheim, Switzerland .
Wilfried Tröger
Dr Rer Nat2 Clinical Research Dr. Tröger (CRDT) , Freiburg, Germany .
AC2T Research (Austria) · ATVerein für Krebsforschung · CH

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesEvaluate the safety and clinical response of complementary treatment with European mistletoe extracts during chemotherapy.

designMonocentric controlled trial with 95 patients randomized into three groups. SETTINGS/LOCATION: National Cancer Research Center of Serbia. SUBJECTS: Breast cancer patients (stage T

interventionsTwo different European mistletoe extracts (Helixor A, Iscador M Spez) were injected three times per week during 18 weeks of chemotherapy in the mistletoe group. Five-year follow-up of routine visits was documented in case report forms. OUTCOME MEASURES: Safety was assessed by measuring adverse events, body temperature during chemotherapy, and probability of relapse or metastasis in a 5-year follow-up. During chemotherapy, the neutrophil count and quality of life according to EORTC QLQ-C30 were assessed.

resultsThe two patient groups receiving different complementary mistletoe treatments were integrated into one mistletoe group for this safety analysis. Patients in the mistletoe group did not develop more fever symptoms than patients in the control group (two short-term events in each group). No significant differences in probability of relapse or metastasis were measured between the groups (p = 0.7637). The mistletoe group showed a trend toward less neutropenia (p = 0.178) and improved pain and appetite loss scores (p < 0.0001 and p = 0.047, respectively) while having positive, but not significant, impact on other EORTC QLQ-C30 scores.

conclusionsMistletoe extracts were safe in this clinical study. Neither did subcutaneous injections induce fever, nor did they influence the frequency of relapse and metastasis within 5 years. This result suggests that mistletoe extracts had no adverse interactions with the anticancer agents used in this study. Furthermore, certain side effects of chemotherapy decreased under this complementary treatment in breast cancer patients.

Indexed as

Antineoplastic AgentsPhytotherapyPlant ExtractsViscum albumAdultBody TemperatureBreast NeoplasmsDisease-Free SurvivalFemaleFollow-Up StudiesHumansMiddle AgedNeutropeniaPainQuality of LifeAntineoplastic AgentsPlant Extracts5-year follow-upbreast cancerchemotherapymistletoe therapyrandomized clinical trialsafety

Identifiers

PMID30247950
PMCPMC6157372
OpenAlexW2893201416

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.