IMMUNOPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY OF THE GALACTOSIDE-SPECIFIC LECTIN FROM MISTLETOE AFTER TUMOR DESTRUCTIVE THERAPY IN GLIOMA PATIENTS

35 patients suffering from malignant stage III/IV glioma were enrolled into a prospectively randomized clinical trial. All patients were pro vided with standard oncologic treatment (neurosurgery, radiation, basi c clinical care according to protocol, and indication) and randomly di vided into a) treatment group: receiving subcutaneous injections of a ML (a galactoside-specific lectin from mistletoe) standardized mistlet oe extract 1 ng ML-1/kg BW, twice a week for 3 months, starting on day 1 post surgery, b) control group: without additional complementary tr eatment. Immunophenotyping of peripheral blood leukocytes was done by flow cytometry (pre surgery; day 1, week 1, month 3 and 6 post surgery ) to evaluate the immunomodulating capacity of ML-1 standardized mistl etoe extract. Standard tumor destructive treatment of glioma proved to be suppressive for peripheral blood lymphocytes, since all subsets te sted revealed statistically significant down regulation. Unlike the ly mphocyte counts find activities of patients from the control group who gave preoperative values after 3-6 months), mistletoe treatment induc ed a statistically significant rip regulation of cell counts (CD-3, CD 4, CD-8 cells) and activities (CD-25, HLA/DR positive cells) after 3 m onths as compared to preoperative values. Obviously, a strong immunopr otective/immunostimulatory effect was induced by the treatment of glio ma patients with ML-1 standardized mistletoe extract which correlated with an improved quality of life, as determined by a standard question naire (Spitzer).