Mistletoe Compounds As Anti-Cancer Drugs: Effects And Mechanisms In The Treatment Of Glioblastoma

As the most malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma (GBM) leads to death in less than 15 months after diagnosis, despite maximal therapeutic treatment using resection and radiochemotherapy. Therefore, new treatment options are urgently needed. Complementary and alternative medicine has become increasingly popular over the last few decades. In this regard, botanical compounds like commercially available extracts from white-berry mistletoe (Viscum album L.) are already widely used in complementary and alternative cancer therapy. The main active components of mistletoe are viscotoxins and mistletoe lectins, which provoke a variety of anti-cancer effects, such as cytotoxicity and immunomodulation. Here, we want to discuss the effects of mistletoe-based therapy for glioma in vitro, in mouse models and in patients. These effects include downregulation of central genes involved in GBM progression and malignancy, enhanced immune cell-mediated GBM cell killing, reduced motility of GBM cells and reduced tumor growth in mice. In patients, mistletoe treatment leads to an improvement in the quality of life, a tendency toward prolongation of relapse-free survival and immunostimulatory responses. In conclusion, mistletoe-based drugs show multiple positive effects in the treatment of GBM and should be considered as a concomitant treatment for this type of cancer. (C) 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel