Accessible online at: www.karger.com/onk Fax +49 761 4 52 07 14 E-mail Information@Karger.de www.karger.com tract, both on the protein level and on the mRNA level (as shown by real time-RT-PCR). What can we learn from these studies? – Very little. First, it is not particularly surprising to see that lymphoid tumor cells do not respond when stimulated with a multi-component plant extract. Second, the read-out system (IL-6 and IL-6 receptor expression) is only one pair out of dozens of ligand/receptor interactions that may influence the fate of neoplastic lymphoid cells. Third, only cell lines were used for these studies, further reducing the relevance of these observations. Finally, no effort was undertaken to study the actions of Iscador on cell proliferation, apoptosis or other functional parameters. Therefore, the results presented in the paper of Hugo and colleagues do not even allow to conclude that Iscador has no effect on the IL-6 secretion of lymphoid malignancies. Thus, while the effort to study the effects of complementary medicines on the cellular level deserves credit, more systematic functional analyses are warranted in the future to learn more about the potential stimulation of malignant cell proliferation in NHL by V. album extracts.
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