Los extractos de Viscum album Iscador (R) P e Iscador (R) M contrarrestan los efectos inducidos por factores de crecimiento sobre celulas humanas de B-NHL folicular y de cincer de mama

Hugo, F.; Schwitalla, S.; Niggemann, B.; Zaenker, K. , S.; Dittmar, T.

Mistletoe therapy has been implemented in cancer therapy in Germany for the last 30 years, whereby its application in the clinic ranges between 46 to 70% of patients with malignant diseases including follicular B Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (B-NHL) and breast cancer. In the majority of cases, mistletoe extracts (also named Viscum album (VA) extracts) are given as an adjuvant therapy, e.g. in combination with chemotherapy. The use of VA extracts in the treatment of follicular B-NHL is still subject to controversial discussions. On the one hand, various studies indicated that intravenous application caused elevated interleukin-6 (IL-6) serum levels in patients, which would be fatal for B-NHL patients since IL-6 is a proliferation factor for neoplastic B-cells. On the other hand, we and other groups have shown that the VA extract Iscador(R) does not provoke an IL-6 deregulation in follicular B-NHL cell lines and that subcutaneous application of Iscador(R) does not cause increased IL-6 serum levels. Here we investigated the influence of the VA extract Iscador(R) on the IL-6 induced proliferation of two follicular B-NHL cell lines. Interestingly, Iscador(R)P had a more profound inhibitory effect on the proliferation of follicular B-NHL cell lines if these were stimulated with IL-6. Thereby, Iscador(R)P acts differently on the investigated cell lines. For instance, in the WSU-NHL B-NHL cell line, Iscador(R)P and IL-6 co-treatment caused a bax up-regulation, which correlated with an increased number of apoptotic cells. In contrast, an increased number of apoptotic cells was not detectable in Sc-1 cells, albeit the proliferation rate of Iscador(R)P and IL-6 co-treated cells was markedly decreased. The observation that VA extracts are more potent if applied with proliferatory stimulus was also observed for the human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-468-HER2. Here, the VA extract Iscador(R)M efficiently counteracts the EGF induced proliferation and migration of these cells. In summary, our data provide new insights in the potency of VA extracts for cancer treatment.