Mistletoe extract: every public report we counted

Where these came from

• HealthUnlocked 12 reports
• Breast Cancer Now forum 6 reports
• Inspire 5 reports
• Breastcancer.org community 1 report
• Melanoma Research Foundation forum 1 report

Cancer

21 reports: 10 helped, 4 no effect or worse, 7 mixed or too early.

• Helped Has injected Iscador for more than four years after a late diagnosis and has passed the five-year mark; feels it is helping. Breast Cancer Now forum, 2010-10-02 (Survival alongside standard treatment; poster does not claim proof.)
• Helped Reports no side effects and remission seven and a half years after a poor-prognosis diagnosis; later adds she cannot know whether Iscador made the difference. Breast Cancer Now forum, 2010-10-03 (Remission after full standard treatment; poster acknowledges uncertainty.)
• Helped Says her mother took mistletoe for ten years after bowel cancer surgery, declined chemotherapy, and has had no recurrence in twenty years. Breast Cancer Now forum, 2010-10-03 (Second-hand report from a daughter; stage and pathology not given.)
• Too early Started Iscador privately at a low series because of sensitivities; tolerating it so far and has reached the expected skin reaction. Side effects: injection-site red mark (the intended reaction). Breast Cancer Now forum, 2010-12-03 (No cancer outcome reported.)
• Helped Took letrozole plus Iscador for five years after a 2006 bone-metastasis diagnosis and reports no cancer since. Breast Cancer Now forum, 2015-11-26 (Letrozole is an effective standard drug and is a strong confounder.)
• Too early Gave the first mistletoe injection the day before posting and had not yet had the expected skin reaction. Breastcancer.org community, 2025-11 (Just started.)
• Helped Has just started mistletoe and says it is working well for her condition; main complaint is the practitioner's cost. HealthUnlocked, 2018-09-07 (Very early report; no measure given.)
• Helped Uses mistletoe injections alongside palbociclib and letrozole and finds them helpful. HealthUnlocked, 2021-08-26 (No measure given; several treatments at once.)
• Mixed Was cancer free for five and a half years before a recurrence; stopped because of injections, prescription hassle and cost, and has not restarted. Side effects: discomfort of frequent injections. HealthUnlocked, 2021-05-13 (Does not attribute either the remission or the recurrence to mistletoe.)
• Helped Took Iscador for about three years before radiotherapy and credits it as one of the things that kept the cancer stable; would use it again. HealthUnlocked, 2020-02-03 (Says himself it is impossible to tell which treatment helped.)
• No effect PSA rose from 17.6 to 31.1 and a scan showed more cancer activity during two months of Iscador, so he stopped it. HealthUnlocked, 2019-04 (No standard treatment; short trial.)
• Mixed PSA fell to 0.1 with mistletoe among about ten concurrent therapies, mostly credited to hyperthermia and hormone therapy; the colon cancer later spread again. HealthUnlocked, 2019-05 (Mistletoe's part cannot be separated.)
• Too early After BCG, had three weeks of Iscador by several routes at a Swiss clinic; strong injections brought high fevers. Too early to judge. Side effects: high fever after injections (intended by the clinic). Inspire, 2013-03-21 (Replies are members-only and were not read.)
• Mixed Says Iscador did not stop her mother's ovarian cancer but did give her pain relief in her last days. Melanoma Research Foundation forum, 2011-08-17 (Second-hand family report.)
• Helped Reports great results from mistletoe; says her oncologist could not explain the improvement. Inspire, 2019-03-14 (No details of treatment or measures.)
• Too early After six weeks she cannot tell whether it helps; a strong reaction left a sore, itchy lump and that area became hard to inject. Side effects: sore, itchy lump at the injection site, skin that resisted the needle. Inspire, 2019-05-05 (Early report.)
• Worse Tried mistletoe a few years earlier and quit because her CA-125 tumour marker rose. Inspire, 2019-05-17 (Marker change only; timing and other treatment not given.)
• Helped After a year of mistletoe injections and infusions, believes it is a big part of having had no evidence of disease for almost a year. Side effects: scarring at injection sites. Inspire, 2019-06-16 (Many concurrent therapies; prior treatment not described.)
• No effect Takes one homeopathic mistletoe tablet a day; feels well but cannot say whether it makes any difference. HealthUnlocked, 2021-02 (Homeopathic dilution, not the extract studied in trials.)
• Helped Her first scan after starting mistletoe showed smaller tumours and healing bone metastases and she feels great, though her tumour marker has climbed again. HealthUnlocked, 2021-02 (Started anastrozole a few months earlier, which can explain the scan; marker rising.)
• No effect Made his own mistletoe tincture with other herbs over a summer; PSA kept climbing. HealthUnlocked, 2019-04-06 (Home-made oral tincture, not a pharmaceutical extract.)

Chemotherapy side effects

4 reports: 4 helped, 0 no effect or worse, 0 mixed or too early.

• Helped Started Iscador during chemotherapy and says it eased the side effects; tumour free about five years later. Breast Cancer Now forum, 2017-09-24 (Lives in Switzerland where insurance covers it; outcome self-assessed.)
• Helped Had stopped chemotherapy because of severe gut pain; after starting mistletoe injections she restarted, had no more stomach pain and finished the course. HealthUnlocked, 2022-09-14 (Single course; she does not expect mistletoe to treat the cancer itself.)
• Helped Injected mistletoe throughout chemotherapy on her doctor's advice to ease side effects and feels it was an important part of coping well. HealthUnlocked, 2021-03 (Same person also reported this in a later thread; counted once.)
• Helped Used mistletoe for a long time and feels it made her feel better through treatment; stopped over cost and medication changes. HealthUnlocked, 2021-03 (Not used to treat the cancer itself.)