Comparison of efficacy and side effects of propolis with chemotherapy and chemotherapy alone for neoadjuant therapy of ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is the most common cancer of the female genital tract which is often advanced at the diagnosis. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is used in advanced cases، but is associated with several side-effects. Propolis is a substance made by bees. Recent studies show that propolis with chemotherapy has therapeutic effect and reduces chemotherapy side-effects and toxicity. This study was performed aimed to comparatively evaluate the efficacy and side-effects of propolis with chemotherapy and chemotherapy alone for neoadjuvant therapy of ovarian cancer.

This double-blind randomized clinical trial study was performed on the women with advanced stages of epithelial ovarian cancer who required neoadjuvant chemotherapy at the department of gynecology oncology of Ghaem and Omid hospitals، Mashhad University of Medical Sciences from 2013 to 2014. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups. In addition to the usual chemotherapy، one group randomly received Propolis tablet and other group received placebo. Two groups were compared in terms of reduced tumor volume and tumor marker of CA125 and nausea، vomiting، cytopenia، liver dysfunction and possibility of optimal cytoreductive surgery after treatment. Data analysis was performed using SPSS statistical software (version 16) and Mann-Whitney، Exact fisher test and Kruskal-Wallis tests.

In both groups، reduced tumor volume and tumor marker of CA125 had a significant decrease، but no significant difference was observed between the two groups (P=….). The rate of leukopenia، nausea، and vomiting was not significantly different between the two groups (P=…). No cases had liver dysfunction. All cases underwent cytoreductive surgery in Propolis group، but optimal cytoreductive surgery was not performable in 2 patients (25%) in the placebo group.

Propolis administration along with chemotherapy improves the efficacy of common chemotherapy without adverse therapeutic effect.