While Iscador/mistletoe is a popular therapy for cancer in Germany and Switzerland (studies have shown that it is the most widely used unconventional cancer therapy in Germany), it is less well known than other alternative cancer treatments in the United States. As a cancer treatment, Iscador/mistletoe is injected, almost always under a physician's supervision. It is generally used as an adjunct or complement to other treatments, conventional and unconventional. In Europe, and to a limited extent in the U.S., it is employed as one of a number of treatments of anthroposophical medicine, an alternative philosophical and healing system developed by Rudolph Steiner, PhD (1861-1925), a European scientist, philosopher, educator, and the founder of Anthroposophy. Contrary to Cassileth's assertions in People magazine, there are ample reports of mistletoe's value in treating cancer. James Gordon, MD, the chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary Alternative Medicine Policy, summarizes some of the promising research on pages 138-140 of Comprehensive Cancer Care (2000, Perseus Publishing). Several excellent online sources on mistletoe and cancer are listed at the end of this article. One of the best is the page on mistletoe at the Center for Alternative Medicine Research in Cancer (University of Texas at Houston) Web site. David S. Riley, MD On April 29, on the eve of the publication of the mistletoe study in the journal he edits, David Riley, MD went on the record in a telephone interview from his home in Santa Fe, NM. Peter Chowka: Most of the reporting on Suzanne Somers that has mentioned mistletoe has referred to it negatively. For example, Barrie Cassileth in People magazine. . . David Riley, MD: She's known to be a fairly strong critic of alternative medicine. I would be surprised if she'd say anything positive. The usual thing is that many doctors in this country are only aware of the English language literature. There have been 95 studies on this product done in Germany and in Europe over the past twenty years — in the peer-reviewed medical literature by conventional doctors, pharmacologists. There are a lot of basic science studies going on in mistletoe right now looking at some of the biologically active components of mistletoe, particularly the lectins, to try to sort out on a biomedical level exactly what's going on. It's fairly common that doctors in this country ignore the medical literature from elsewhere. I think that will change but old habits die slowly. The thing is, in conventional medicine - and I'm an internist - the way it works is that one positive study doesn't confirm activity and one negative study doesn't disprove it. One of the nice things about mistletoe, they [the study's authors] are quite clearly claiming that it's effective as an adjunct to conventional treatment and that it appears to be effective primarily for solid tumors. They're not claiming that it's good for all types of cancer. Chowka: The study is long term and large. What else can you say about it? Riley: The study was done by Grossarth-Maticek, a sociologist. He was interested in the concept of people's ability to self-regulate themselves. He was interested in doing a longitudinal, epidemiological study, sorting residents of a town, Heidelberg, Germany, according to their ability to self-regulate. So he he followed 35,000 people for 30 years with individual interviews. It's an amazing process. And when you do those kinds of studies, there's an incredible amount of data there. In Germany, particularly, mistletoe is the most common cancer therapy. What they [Grossarth-Maticek and his co-authors] found out of this large number of patients - they were able to do what you call a matched pair cohort study where you match [people] with somebody else according to age, gender, type of tumor, and then the only variable in these matched pairs was whether they had mistletoe added to their conventional therapy. And in those [patients] who got the mistletoe, there was a 40 percent increase in survival time. Chowka: You mentioned that you have experience clinically with mistletoe to the extent that you occasionally monitor its use in patients for whom it has been prescribed by another physician. Have you been able to form any impression yourself as to whether you find it intriguing or promising? Riley: I found it to be intriguing. It definitely has an immune stimulatory capability. One of the interesting things is that most patients who take it report a sense of heat internally. I don't know exactly what that means. Jefferson Medical College [in Philadelphia], the oncology group there, has just submitted a grant to the NIH for research on mistletoe. Chowka: I've had occasion over the years to write about different celebrities who have chosen an alternative medical path, including the actor Steve McQueen in 1980, and it's always been a tough row to hoe. Riley: The thing is, she [Somers] did it exactly correctly. She got the diagnosis, she was lucky the way she got the diagnosis, she had the lumpectomy - they said there were no nodes that were positive - she had radiation therapy and then there was conflicting opinion within her conventional oncological team about whether she needed chemotherapy. Breast cancer is a solid tumor; mistletoe seems to work for that. In the study that we're publishing, breast cancer was one of the tumors which it seemed to work for. She's not, as the press is saying, "abandoning" conventional medicine by doing this — she's combining them. naturalhealthline.com Peter Chowka's site Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.