Mycology - The Study of Mushrooms

Mycology is the study of mushrooms, with most of the mycological research in cancer care conducted in either Japan, Korea or China. In Japan, Sankyo Pharmaceutical Co., licensed an extract of Coriolus versicolor from Kureha Chemical Co. This extract, named Krestin (PSK), became Sankyo's largest-selling pharmaceutical product for over ten years, selling over $600 million per year, when prescribed along with chemotherapuetic agents for the treatment of cancer.

Immunotherapy represents a Japanese approach to treating cancer, one completely different from the established approaches that include various combinations of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. In principle, immunotherapy stimulates the cancer patient's own immune system to attack the disease, the body's natural defences can be made to destroy cancer cells in a manner similar to destroying invading bacteria.

In Japan, since the late 1960¥s, various attempts on the use of immunotherapy on malignant tumours have been modelled on "vaccine therapy", which was the treatment of infectious diseases in association with progress in bacteriology in the 19th century. Almost all the attempts resulted in failure, until the antigenicity of the tumours was established.

Antigens are formed through the introduction of foreign substances into or the formation of antigenic substances in human living system. Namely, RNA produced from macrophage probably transfers the information to T-cells or the antigens directly stimulate the T-cells.

T-cells are classified into killer-T-cells (which directly attack cancer cells), helper T-cells (which enhance the antigen recognition ability of T-cells) and suppresser T-cells in association with macrophage. Furthermore, the T-cells transfer the information of the antigen to B-cells from bone marrow to enhance production of humoral antibody, namely Immunoglobulin product in plasma cells.

The reduction of immunological ability with the progress of cancer has often been observed clinically, sometimes resulting in rapid tumour growth. This situation could be the result of many reasons, such as:

• Receptors saturated with tumour antigen released in excess from cancer cells, namely antigen antibody complex blocks T-cell function becoming a blocking factor.
• The immune suppressive factors produced by cancer itself.
• The reversal action of humoral antibody produced by B-cells may be coupled with aforementioned mechanisms.

All these are called immunological tolerance or the immunological enhancement. Cancer immunotherapy aims to maintain and increase the immunological activity of the patient.

Non-specific tests such as peripheral lymphocyte counts and determination of immunoglobulin are relatively routine and simple to perform.

The present treatment modalities used against malignant tumours are:

• Radical surgery
• Radiation and Chemotherapy
• Cancer immunotherapy seeks to add the aspect of nutritional management as adjunct therapy to the two traditional approaches to treating cancer. Furthermore, immunotherapy can be measured in terms of immunological activity either as specific (to enhance specific immunity against the tumour) or non-specific (stimulation of overall immune response).

The use of mycology in immunotherapy is one of many approaches to immunotherapy. Mycology is best classified as non-specific immunotherapy which stimulates the overall immune response of the host.

Anti-tumour action of select plants and mushrooms have been used by Japanese practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine for generations. In the mid-1960's, Japanese scientists focused on select mushrooms such as Ganoderma lucidium (reishi) and Lentinus edodes (shitake). The research also focused on extractions from other mushrooms.