title: Preclinical and clinical effects of mistletoe against breast cancer.
abstract: Breast cancer is among the most frequent types of cancer in women worldwide. Current conventional treatment options are accompanied by side effects. Mistletoe is amongst the important herbal medicines traditionally used as complementary remedies. An increasing number of studies have reported anticancer activity of mistletoe extracts on breast cancer cells and animal models. Some recent evidence suggests that cytotoxic activity of mistletoe may be mediated through different mechanisms. These findings provide a good base for clinical trials. Various studies on mistletoe therapy for breast cancer patients revealed similar findings concerning possible benefits on survival time, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), remission rate, and alleviating adverse reactions to conventional therapy. This review provides an overview of the recent findings on preclinical experiments and clinical trials of mistletoe for its cytotoxic and antitumor activity and its effect on HRQoL in breast cancer patients. Moreover, studies investigating molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying antitumor activity of mistletoe are discussed in this paper. The analyzed trials provided evidence that there might be a combination of pharmacological and motivational aspects mediated by the mistletoe extract application which may contribute to the clinical benefit and positive outcome such as improved HRQoL and self-regulation in breast cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: IJN-UTM Cardiovascular Engineering Center, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Mohsen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marvibaigi
authors.affiliation: IJN-UTM Cardiovascular Engineering Center, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Eko
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6766-793X
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Supriyanto
authors.affiliation: IJN-UTM Cardiovascular Engineering Center, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Neda
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Amini
authors.affiliation: Bioprocess Engineering Department, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Fadzilah Adibah
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Abdul Majid
authors.affiliation: IJN-UTM Cardiovascular Engineering Center, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Saravana Kumar
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Jaganathan
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000187:drug effects; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D014784:Mistletoe / Q000737:chemistry*; D008517:Phytotherapy; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000737:chemistry / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D011788:Quality of Life
chemical_list: D010936:Plant Extracts