Effect of BioBran on survival and quality of life improvement in patients with progressive cancer

Clinical Pharmacology and Therapy Volume 14 No. 3 May 2004
Kihachiro Takahara and Kamataro Sano

Two hundred and five patients with malignant tumors who were receiving alternative therapy and chemotherapy with mild adverse drug reactions were divided into two groups. One of the groups (the control group) received conventional alternative therapy and chemotherapy, and the other group (BioBran group) was given 1 g of BioBran three times a day after each meal for 18 months, in addition to receiving the same therapy as the control group. The correlation between natural killer (NK) cell activity determined during the observation period and survival rate was studied.

The patients’ quality of life was assessed on a scale of 0 to 4 for pain, fatigue, and nausea, and on a scale of 0 to 3 with regard to appetite at the start of and during the observation period. Of the 205 patients participating in the study, 53 patients in the control group were unable to continue the conventional alternative therapy and dropped out, and therefore 152 patients (56 in the control group and 96 in the BioBran group) were included in the analysis.

At the end of the observation period, the survival rates in the control group and the BioBran group were 35.8% and 54.2%, respectively. This represents a 50% increase in survival rate in the BioBran group compared to the control group. Higher NK cell activity was also shown to be associated with an increased survival rate (Table 1). It was confirmed that the patients’ quality of life improved after the study compared to the baseline in both the control and BioBran group. A notable improvement in appetite was observed in the BioBran group (Table 2).

This page contains data that has been partially modified from the original tables in the article for optimal presentation on the website.