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Impact of mistletoe lectin binding in breast cancer
Peter Fritz1, Jürgen Dippon, Thomas Kierschke
1Zentrum für diagnostische Medizin Robert Bosch Krankenhaus, Auerbachstr. 110, D-70376 Stuttgart, Germany.
Background:
One of the most often used complementary or alternative anticancer therapeutics for breast cancer is mistletoe extract with Viscum album lectin (VAA-1) as the leading component. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between VAA-1 binding in breast cancer and disease outcome.
Materials And Methods:
VAA-1 binding to either tumour cells or tumour infiltrating inflammatory cells was examined by immunohistochemical staining of paraffin tissue sections from breast cancer patients (n=226).
Results:
About 34% of breast cancer tumour cells displayed a strong VAA-1 binding. Kaplan-Meier statistics revealed an inverse correlation between disease outcome and presence of strong VAA-1 binding to tumour cells.
Conclusion:
As binding of VAA-1 indicates the presence of galactose molecules in saccharide structures of the cytoplasm or cell membrane, we conclude that the amount of galactose-containing glycoproteins, mucoproteins and glycolipids in breast cancer tumour cells is related to disease outcome.
