Green Tea May Benefit Leukemia Patients

Mayo Clinic researchers are reporting positive results in early leukemia clinical trials using the chemical epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), an active ingredient in green tea. The trial determined that patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can tolerate the chemical fairly well when high doses are administered in capsule form and that lymphocyte count was reduced in one-third of participants. The findings appear online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“We found not only that patients tolerated the green tea extract at very high doses, but that many of them saw regression to some degree of their chronic lymphocytic leukemia,” said Tait Shanafelt, M.D., Mayo Clinic hematologist and lead author of the study. “The majority of individuals who entered the study with enlarged lymph nodes saw a 50 percent or greater decline in their lymph node size.”CLL is the most common subtype of leukemia in the United States.

The research has moved to the second phase of clinical testing in a follow-up trial—already fully enrolled—involving roughly the same number of patients. All will receive the highest dose administered from the previous trial. Doses ranged from 400mg to 2,000 mg administered twice a day. Researchers determined that they had not reached a maximum tolerated dose, even at 2,000 mg twice per day.

Bonnie - this is very encouraging data that seems to support what was found in animal studies.