A herbal mixture that includes extracts of mistletoe and green tomato lead to a treatment response in patients with hepatitis C infection that does not respond to interferon therapy. Dr. Harald Matthes and colleagues assessed the outcomes of 79 hepatitis C patients who were treated with the herbal mixture. The patients had either failed to respond to interferon therapy or had a specific reason why they couldn’t receive such therapy.
After receiving the mixture for 2 years, 44 percent of patients had a complete treatment response, 28 percent had a partial response, and 28 percent had no response.
Matthes noted that mistletoe is used in the treatment of about 60 percent of cancer patients in Germany, so its safety profile is well established. However, he would not recommend these agents as first-line treatment, since interferon is associated with a better response rate and requires only one year of treatment.
The findings were presented at Digestive Disease Week, which is jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society for gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract.