SynthesisIntegrative cancer therapies
Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Patients Treated With Mistletoe Extracts: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Synthesis in Integrative cancer therapies. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Immersive Virtual Therapy as a Method Supporting the Psychological and Physical Well-Being of Women with a Breast Cancer Diagnosis: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Trial
- Clinical research on homeopathic preparations: protocol template for a series of systematic reviews.Systematic reviews · 2026Article
- Medicinal Plants and Phytochemicals in Cardioprotection-Mechanistic Pathways and Translational Roadmap.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Mistletoe in Cancer Cell Biology: Recent Advances.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Review
- AGO Recommendations for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Patients with Early Breast Cancer: Update 2025.Breast care (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Psychological and Physical Well-Being in Women Diagnosed with Breast Cancer: A Comprehensive Study of Anxiety, Depression, Sleep Quality, Physical Activity, and Sociodemographic Factors.Medical science monitor : international medical journal of experimental and clinical research · 2024Article
- Pharmakokinetics of Mistletoe Lectins after Intravenous Application of a Mistletoe Product in Healthy Subjects.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- New Therapy for Chronic Sarcoidosis withJournal of evidence-based integrative medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBreast cancer is the most common cancer type in women and quality of life an essential part of patients' well-being. Although the treatment with mistletoe extracts is covered by multiple cancer guidelines and reviews, it is uncertain whether mistletoe extracts can improve the quality of life in breast cancer patients. We therefore performed a systematic review and meta-analysis on this topic.
methodsThis systematic review included randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and non-randomized studies of intervention (NRSIs) comparing the quality of life in breast cancer patients treated with mistletoe extracts as add-on therapy to control groups treated conventionally. We searched previous systematic reviews and multiple databases until January 2023. We conducted a meta-analysis and assessed the risk of bias according to the Cochrane Handbook via RoB 2 and ROBINS-I and the certainty of evidence via GRADE, respectively.
resultsNine RCTs and 7 NRSIs with 833 and 2831 participants, respectively, were included. The pre-post changes for the quality of life resulted in a pooled standardized mean difference for RCTs of SMD = 0.61 (95% CI 0.47-0.75; DISCUSSION: Our results indicate a clinically relevant, medium-sized effect of mistletoe extracts on the quality of life in breast cancer patients which may be based on the immunomodulating effects of mistletoe extracts during chemotherapy. The limitations of evidence include the risk of bias which is mainly caused by the difficulty of blinding. Further RCTs and real-world evidence need to confirm this result, especially in the setting of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and in breast cancer survivors.
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