Case reports of sarcoma patients with optimized lectin-oriented and standardized mistletoe extract therapy

Background: Mistletoe (Viscum album L.) extracts (ME) are widespread as immunomodulatory therapeutic agents in alternative tumor treatment. Assessing the often controversial clinical results is rather difficult since the effects of ME on the immune system cannot be equally reproduced. Growing evidence suggests that mistletoe lectins (ML) are able to bind appropriate pattern recognition receptors (PRR) of IL-12 producing macrophages and dendritic cells (CD75) and this binding shows some similarities with interactions between Toll-like receptors and pathogens associated molecular pattern (PAMP) ligands of microorg…