Tuesday, October 24. 2006
I have been taking EGCG supplement capsules personally over the last few months. I have also been aggressively recommending it to my patients for potentially numerous medical benefits. Over the same period of time many of you have been similarly bombarded with information about epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) from me. Now read this summary of an article from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Division of Hematology soon to be published in the journal Leukemia Research. This is really exciting stuff.
Clinical effects of oral green tea extracts in four patients with low grade B-cell malignancies.
Shanafelt TD, Lee YK, Call TG, Nowakowski GS, Dingli D, Zent CS, Kay NE.
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA.
Green tea or its constituents have long been touted as a health promoting substance including claims it may have cancer prevention properties. We previously reported the in vitro ability of one tea polyphenol, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), to induce apoptotic cell death in the leukemic B-cells from a majority of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). After the publication of our findings many patients with CLL and other low grade lymphomas began using over-the-counter products containing tea polyphenols despite the absence of evidence to suggest clinical benefit, definition of possible toxicities, or information on optimal dose and schedule. We have become aware of four patients with low grade B-cell malignancies seen in our clinical practice at Mayo Clinic who began, on their own initiative, oral ingestion of EGCG containing products and subsequently appeared to have an objective clinical response. Three of these four patients met criteria for partial response (PR) by standard response criteria. Although spontaneous remission/regression is occasionally observed in individuals with low grade B-cell malignancies, such events are rare. Several patients presented here had documented steady clinical, laboratory, and/or radiographic evidence of progression immediately prior to initiation of over-the-counter green tea products and then developed objective responses shortly after self-initiating this therapy. Such anecdotes highlight the need for clinical trials of tea polyphenols to define the optimal dosing, schedule, toxicities, and clinical efficacy before widespread use can be recommended. An NCI sponsored phase I/II trial of de-caffeinated green tea extracts for patients with asymptomatic, early stage CLL opened at Mayo Clinic in August 2005.
PMID: 16325256 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Sultan H. Rahaman, M.D. President Wellness for Life Center, Inc. info@wellnessforlifecenter.org
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