Mistletoe and the Emerging Future of Integrative Oncology

Mistletoe and the Emerging Future of Integrative Oncology (2021; Steven Johnson, Nasha Winters, Adam Blanning, Marion Debus, Paul Faust, Mark Hancock and Peter Hinderberger). 6” x 9” hardback 385 PP; ISBN: 9781938685330; https://steinerbooks.com ; $34.95

‘…the greatest need of modern human beings is a reconciliation of the findings of modern science with a spiritual view of life. Trained intuition …offers that possibility’.–Franz E. Winkler (1)

For those who know nothing about the use of mistletoe and its treatment for cancer and those who know a lot, this could be the right, single source to guide your introduction as well as deeper studies.

After a foreword by Dr Luis A. Diaz and introduction by Dr Steven Johnson, DO, Part I, ‘The Landscape of Mistletoe Therapy’, begins your educational voyage with medical doctors and naturopaths.

These 65 pages, three chapters, introductory section, briefly discuss the history of mistletoe and modern oncology; the immunology and science of mistletoe and the state of current mistletoe research.

It is followed by Part II, Mistletoe in Clinical Practice, consisting of 48 pages in two chapters.

The first concerns understanding host trees and the best practices in choosing mistletoe therapies (MTs).

The second details treatment priorities in response to the uniqueness of the patient.

Part III, Human-Centred Medicine of 64 pages in four chapters, deals with the physiology of warmth; what is ‘Constitutional Care’ in the anthroposophic world?; seeing the whole human organism before providing care; pairing anthroposophical medical adjuvants -Helleborus and other anthroposophic remedies provided alongside MT and building the bridge between mistletoe and other integrative therapies.

Part IV, Weaving It All Together – Special Applications in Clinical Practice, consists of three chapters of 60 pages. The first deals with unique scenarios -novel mistletoe administration routes and understanding tissue-origins of specific cancer types, the second, with using MT in advanced disease and end-of-life care and the third with what the horizon holds for MT and the expanding integrative approach to cancer care.

Appendices, in approximately 80 pages, deal with the Basics of Mistletoe Administration; Dramatic Responses to VAE (Viscum album extracts) Therapy: Understanding Tumor Lysis, Pseudo Progression, and Allergy Potential; Anamnestic Intake Form; M.D. Anderson Prognostic Scoring System; Host Trees and Cancer Types: Basic Matching Guidelines and Terrain-centric Core Laboratory Tests and True Healthy Ranges.

Lastly, there are resource and acknowledgment appendices and a references/author notes section which contains over 650 citings. Throughout, many abbreviations, e.g. PAC, SOC, CEA, IT, SC, QOL and GBM, are used. While I have no qualms with this and understand why they are used, the reader could have benefited from a glossary section defining them. The book has no index.

All of the 12 mostly detailed cases presented in this volume end positively for the patients. Additionally, the patient relates shifts in psychological wellness and spiritual insights or awakenings. Thus, not only is physical health improved but some of lifes existential questions are answered. In general, it seems a heightened sense of freedom results and isn't that something which all of us strive for; that feeling of contentment and resolve which always accompanies freedom. In this regard, I could quote Dr Blannings insight from page no. 132 but decided instead to offer a thought expressed by Ralph Llewelyn Twentyman (1914–2010), the great British homeopath, anthroposophist and early pioneer of MT in that country:

‘As I have worked for many years with the anthroposophical mistletoe remedy, Iscador, in cancer, I must mention an aspect of its use in addition to its pharmacological cytotoxic and immune stimulating actions. It seems to open up and release the buried forces we have been discussing. It makes it easier for the patients to accept new impulses awakening in them, even if to their customary stereotyped viewpoints these are childish or bizarre. The handicapped children of the soul are most easily accepted in a Christmas atmosphere under the mistletoe, when all divisions of class, race, sex and so on should melt away. In an atmosphere of acceptance and forgiveness the stirrings of a new conscience born in the individual soul may be felt and the inspiration to find the creative novelty, the right thought, word and deed for the unprecedented situations in which we find ourselves. Because our crisis today is unprecedented it cannot be met with conventional moral answers. It is the birth pangs of a new world’.–R. L. Twentyman (The Science and Art of Healing, 1992, Floris Books, pp. 275-6).

For the sake of brevity, I've chosen one of the shortest cases to relate:

‘A 51-year-old female, in good health otherwise, presented with two lesions on the lower part of her left leg. One lesion had developed smaller satellite lesions. This was confirmed as grade I follicular B-cell lymphoma. The patient was generally healthy with no allergies or history of infections’.

She did not smoke or drink and wasn't taking any medications. A bone marrow biopsy was normal, but she did have one swollen inguinal lymph node. SOC recommendations were: systemic immunochemotherapy followed by radiation. The patient came to PAC wishing to delay the SOC plan and ‘keep it in reserve,’ while trying VAE therapies first.

‘Treatment and Outcomes: The patient and her practitioner team developed a plan combining IV, IT and SC mistletoe over the course of one year, and then continued IV and SC mistletoe for another eight months (AbnobaViscum Fraxini). She also received multiple treatments of whole- body hyperthermia (WBHT, medical hyperthermia; see Chapter 9). No other cancer treatments were administered during this time.

‘IT injections were administered from the margins of the lesions, to avoid the very thin skin over the tumours. The patient experienced four febrile (fever) responses during the initial fever induction phase. The lesions swelled (as expected) initially, then began to regress. Regression accelerated with WBHT, and after 4 months the lesions were significantly reduced. Remission was assessed by three independent clinicians and confirmed by scans in May 2009. IT therapy was stopped at this time, and the patient continued with the 8 months of IV and SC therapy along with WBHT.

Complete remission had been maintained as of reviews in both June and December 2011.

‘All therapies were generally well tolerated. IV and IT therapies caused some transient fatigue, and swelling from the IT injections caused discomfort, but not enough to warrant analgesics’. The patient referred to the fever therapies as intense and ‘the only thing I could do during that time.’ She also stated that, ‘During one of the high fevers an old traumatic experience became disentangled, and I have felt freed up since; I now feel better than before my cancer, physically and emotionally’– Faust and Debus (from Chapter 3, ‘The State of Current Mistletoe Research,’ pp. 61-2; this chapter also contains abstracts of nine published articles, e.g. ‘Intravenous mistletoe treatment in integrative cancer care: a qualitative study exploring the procedures, concepts, and observations of expert doctors’ - G. S. Kienle, et al., Evidence-based Complementary Alternative Medicine, 2016, ePub, April 2016).

As this book is filled with so much authoritative and cutting-edge information, I found it difficult to choose a representative sampling of that material. However, I did find Dr med. Peter Hinderberger's contribution particularly noteworthy, especially his ‘Understanding Host Trees: best practices in choosing Mistletoe Therapies,’ which is the title of Chapter 4.

Peter starts this chapter with a quote by Dr Eli Jones: ‘Do not get so taken up by the cancerous condition that you forget the most essential part of your treatment - the general condition’. (2)

This quote points to the totality and constitution on which this chapter focuses. It is an area in MT not familiar to me, that is, different host trees have their own constitutional proclivities which stamp their mark on the associated mistletoe. For example, mali or apple mistletoe extract is especially useful for breast, ovarian and uterine cancers, while some abdominal tumours and lymphatic cancers are also addressed.

‘These patients [the Mali person] tend to be a little overweight, perhaps pear-shaped, but look healthy and strive to exercise or maintain an athletic lifestyle. They tend to be more phlegmatic (stolidly calm) and shorter in stature. They frequently feel under-appreciated, unattractive or unloved.

Mali patients are often female but can also include men who have a strong sense of guilt or shame. They are often perfectionistic, sometimes compulsively so’.–p. 78.

Another example is the Ash tree (Fraxini) which is of great utility to induce fever especially when given intravenously. It is used in very aggressive cancers which have a strong tendency to metastasize.

‘If you look at the ash tree, it is quite massive and takes up a lot of water, so much so that other trees often can’t survive near it. When other trees struggle, the ash thrives. It is a massive presence, and yet it lets a lot of light through because its leaves are thin and serrated. Ash is extremely vital and, in AM [anthroposophical medicine] practice, we believe it can impart some of this vitality (sun forces) to patients, especially in times when it seems that all is lost.

‘The Fraxini patient is incredibly capable and is often perceived as someone who “does it all”. They are multi-tasking parents, often mothers who struggle to find and embrace their destiny. Hormone imbalances are also common. Fraxini is especially helpful for them when they have experienced excess trauma beyond the cancer diagnosis itself or when they are completely spent from surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation’.–pp. 78,9

One of the main reasons why I recommend this book is because it is useful for practitioners and non-practitioners alike. On the one hand, there is an abundance of science-data, graphs, charts (about ten in colour) etc. which would be appreciated by researchers and clinicians yet, for the lay person or patient, it is fairly easy to understand.

As the orthodox medical world begins to open their minds to the approaches outlined in this important work, all of which apply to medical care, the populace will benefit from true healthcare as opposed to management of disease.

1) Quoted from Winkler's book, Man: the Bridge Between Two Worlds, 1960, as cited in Dr. med. Bertram von Zabern's 2021, Early Beginnings of Anthroposophically Extended Medicine and Therapeutic Education in North America. Aside from Henry Barnes' massive reference, Into the Heart's Land: A Century of Rudolf Steiner's Work in North America (2005; this work covers the history and growth of the anthroposophical movement in America), von Zabern's ninety page work is a valued resource filling some of the gaps encountered in Barnes.'

2) Eli Grellet Jones (7–26–1850 • 1–26–1933) was a homeopath and eclectic physician who wrote a little known gem, Definite medication; containing therapeutic facts gleaned from fifty years' practice.(1911), which blended his vast knowledge of allopathy, homeopathy, biochemical therapeutic medical systems, physio-medicalism and eclecticism. In that same year, he published Cancer: its causes, symptoms and treatment: giving the results of over forty years' experience in the medical treatment of this disease. Both of these works are ∼300 pages in length.

Notes

A brief, partial bibliography of anthroposophical cancer books:

Anthroposophical Medicine and Therapies for Cancer (1995, 87pp; Hans-Richard Heiligtag, editor.

This important work compiled and edited by a Lukas clinic doctor contains many enlightening essays by a variety of doctors and therapists within its three sections: ‘From an Image of Man in the Art of Healing’, ‘The Holistic Treatment of Cancer Patients’ and ‘Artistic Therapies’.

Iscador: mistletoe preparations used in anthroposophically extended cancer treatment (1998, 82pp; Robert W. Gorter, M.D. This book, like Heiligtag's. is a gentle yet thorough rendering of the subject and with color plates and graphs on virtually every page).

Fighting Cancer: A Nontoxic Approach to Treatment (2011, 384pp; Robert Gorter M.D. and Erik Peper, Ph.D. This more recent Gorter contribution puts forth the Gorter Model for the treatment of cancer).

Mistletoe Therapy for Cancer: prevention, treatment and healing (2010, 168pp; Dr Johannes Wilkens, Gert Böhm; translated by Peter Clemm. 13 host trees including case studies are presented and the use of metals in therapy is introduced).

Iscador: Mistletoe in Cancer Therapy (2001, 208pp; Christine Murphy, editor. Drs. Richard Wagner and Thomas Schuerholz offer several essays about their MT experiences as Ms. Murphy guides the readers experience).

Vademecum of Anthroposophic Medicines: best practices for mistletoe use in cancer care (2019, & CD; published by the Association of Anthroposophic Physicians in Germany and the Medical Section of the School of Spiritual Science). See https://paam.wildapricot.org/

A brief, partial bibliography of homeopathic cancer books:

Homeopathic Medicine and Cancer: the philosophy and clinical experiences of Dr. A. H. Grimmer, M.D. (1983; 368 pp; Robin Murphy, N.D.; this is a homeopathic research project completed while Murphy was studying, ca. 1979, at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine -NCNM, now called the National University of Natural Medicine -NUNM). This work is available as a spiral bound book, visit https://lotushealthinstitute.com/store/books.html

Cancer & Homeopathy: how to alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery and hormone therapy (2015, 328pp; Jean-Lionel Bagot)

Homeopathic Cancer Drugs: Oncology Materia Medica (2019, 2120pp; Manfred Mueller)

A Homoeopathic Approach to Cancer (2001, 250pp; A.U. Ramakrishnan and Catherine R. Coulter)

Spectrum of Homeopathy: cancer issue (#2, 2014)

Cancer - My Homeopathic Method (2016, 208pp; A.U. Ramakrishnan)

Cancer Congress (2009, Badenweiler, Germany) 12 DVDs; Dietmar Payrhuber, A.U. Ramakrishnan, Alok Pareek, Rosina Sonnenschmidt, Patricia Le Roux and Harald Knauss)

Tumours of the Breast: and their treatment and cure by medicines (1888; James Compton Burnett)

Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Healing Mechanism: discover Cancer's Hidden Purpose, Heal its Root Causes, and be Healthier than Ever (2016, 360pp; Andreas Moritz).

Publication History

Article published online:
12 September 2023