Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ("MSKCC") has announced at the Annual Meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago May 30 - June 3, 2008, the results of a government-funded clinical study which began in 2004 and confirms the immunomodulatory effects of Maitake extracts as well as "no dose-limiting toxicity".  MSKCC also concluded that the clinical significance is unknown yet.  The study was conducted on a crude extract from maitake mushroom (Grifola frondosa). MSKCC together with Cornell University Medical College published in 2004 the result of another laboratory study that showed a significant enhancement of bone marrow colony formation as well as the reduction of toxicity induced by an anti-cancer drug by  the crude Maitake extract.(*)

Mike Shirota, CEO of Maitake Products, Inc. welcomes the study by saying, "Our Grifron®-Pro Maitake D-Fraction® has already been under a clinical trial with advanced breast and prostate cancer patients under Investigational New Drug (IND) approval by the FDA. The new clinical study at MSKCC, one of the nation's most prominent cancer institutes, will significantly strengthen scientific validation of Maitake extracts, although it was not carried out on a purified and standardized extract like our Grifron® Pro Maitake D-Fraction®."  Maitake Products, Inc. is an official Corporate Cancer Research Sponsor of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Maitake Products Inc.'s Maitake D-Fraction® line of Maitake extract products are the only ones available in the market which have been made for over a decade with an established  active proteoglucan (D-fraction) standardization.(**)  Maitake D-Fraction®, PD Fraction®, TD-Fraction®, TMD Fraction®,  Grifron®, Mushroom Wisdom®, Prost ∙ Mate®, Mushroom Emperors™ and MD Fraction™  are registered trademarks or trademarks of Maitake Products, Inc.

 

 

 

 (*) Hong Lin et al., Maitake beta-glucan MD-fraction enhances bone marrow colony formation and reduces doxorubicin toxicity in vitro, International Immunopharmacology, 4 (2004) 91-99 (This study was not conducted on a finished product available in the market such as Maitake Products Inc.'s MD Fraction™).   

 (**) Ikuko Hishida et al., Antitumor Activity Exhibited by Orally Administered Extract from Fruit Body of Grifola frondosa (Maitake), Chem. Pharm. Bull. 36 (5) 1819-1827 (1988). (This study was not conducted on a finished product available in the market such as Maitake Products Inc.'s Maitake D-Fraction®).