milk thistle and liver function during chemo

For what it is worth, I thought I would share in a seperate post. It appears that milk thistle can help protect the liver during chemotherapy. I found the paper that was written on the study that was done with children with leukemia, that is those who took milk thistle were able to tolerate higher doses of chemo than the placebo group however the difference was not that significant. My Oncologist okayed the use of milk thistle during chemo. The reason I wanted to use it, is because I have had hep. C for the last 40 years and was concerned about liver function. I have had elevated liver enzymes but only marginal and then they fall again very quickly seemingly when I increase the dose of milk thistle (sylmarin). I don't know if this is because of the use of milk thistle or if I would have been this way anyway. However I thought it might be useful to share with you on this board but whatever you choose to do remember to always okay it with your doctor first.

Human/Clinical Studies
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/milkthistle/HealthProfessional/page6

Two published case reports describe the use of milk thistle as either a treatment or an adjunctive therapy in individuals with cancer. One case report describes the use of milk thistle in a 34-year-old woman with promyelocytic leukemia.[1] The investigators administered 800 mg of silymarin during the patient’s maintenance therapy, which consisted of treatment with methotrexate and 6-mercaptopurine. During the 4 months of treatment with silymarin, the patient who previously required intermittent breaks in therapy due to abnormal liver enzyme levels had normal liver enzyme levels with no further interruption of therapy. A second case report describes a 52-year-old man with hepatocellular carcinoma.[2] The patient began taking 450 mg of silymarin per day, and spontaneous regression of the tumor was reported in the absence of initiation of anticancer therapy.

In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 50 children who were undergoing treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia and who had chemotherapy -related hepatotoxicity were randomly assigned to receive silymarin or placebo for a 4-week period.[3] Four weeks following completion of the intervention, the silymarin group had a significantly lower aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (P = .05) and a trend towards a significantly lower alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (P = .07). Fewer chemotherapy dose reductions were observed in the silymarin group compared to the placebo group; however, the difference was not significant. No adverse events were reported.


Another URL.

http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/HerbsVitaminsandMinerals/milk-thistle