Mistletoe Lectin Proves Ineffective for Preventing BladderCancer Recurrence

Mistletoe Lectin Proves Ineffective for Preventing BladderCancer Recurrence

ESSEN, Germany--Researchers from the University of Essenstudied the efficacy of adjuvant therapy with mistletoe lectin to prevent therecurrence of superficial bladder cancer and found it had no bearing on the timeto first recurrence, total number of recurrences or recurrence-free outcomes.Their randomized trial was published in the July issue of the Journal ofUrology (168, 1:72-5, 2002) (www.jurology.com).

Forty-five patients with bladder cancer were traditionally treated during athree-year period. The study cohort was randomly divided into a treatment groupreceiving adjuvant therapy with mistletoe lectin or a control group. Patients inthe treatment group received mistletoe lectin two weeks after surgery, withclinical follow-up at three, six, nine, 12 and 18 months. Both study arms werecomprised of similar patients with regard to total number of previous tumors,number of primary lesions and number of recurrent tumors. After 18 months,follow-up demonstrated the recurrence-free interval in both study arms wassimilar as was the total number of recurrences. Researchers concluded adjuvanttreatment with mistletoe lectin did not affect recurrence of bladder cancer.