Antibody therapy and mistletoe therapy

A study from health services research in 43 cancer patients combining monoclonal antibodies (mAB) with Helixor showed the safety of this regimen. The probability of side effects occurring was five times higher in the mAB therapy arm than under the combinational mAB-mistletoe therapy [65]. 

In vitro experiments have also shown that mistletoe extracts do not inhibit the cytostatic effects of the trastuzumab antibody used in breast cancer. The Her-2 positive human breast cancer cell line SK-BR-3 was exposed to different concentrations of trastuzumab and combined with Iscador M in clinically relevant doses. No inhibition of the anticancer effect of trastuzumab was found, but an additive anti-tumour effect was determined by the combination of both drugs. No interaction is to be expected with simultaneous administration [66].

A further real-world data study on 310 tumour patients showed that the number of treatment discontinuations in standard therapy with monoclonal antibodies could be significantly reduced by 50% through additional mistletoe therapy [67]. The same applied to targeted therapies, e.g. with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, in which the additional mistletoe therapy also had positive effects [67].