. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Mar 1.

Published in final edited form as: Eur J Cancer. 2010 Dec 23;47(4):508–514. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2010.11.018

Table 2.

Adverse events associated with herbs and herb-derived compounds used by cancer patients

Herb name	Cancer type	Reported Toxicity	Source
PC-SPES	Prostate	Pulmonary embolus, Disseminated intravascular coagulation	Schiff JD²³, Lock M²⁴
Mistletoe	Breast, Pancreas	Delayed type hypersensitivity, Hyperesinophilia	Shaw HS²⁵, Huber R²⁶
Traditional Chinese Medicine containing aristolochic acid	Genitourinary, Cervix	Renal failure, Nephropathy, Pre-operative hepatitis	Lord GM²⁷, Nortier JL²⁸, Cosyns JP²⁹ Vanherweghem JL³⁰, Critchley LA³¹
Chinese Herbal medicine (specific herbal component not identified)	Lung	Radiation pneumonitis	Taylor CW³²
Mixture of Herbs (e.g. Chaparral, flaxseed, alfalfa, red clover, licorice, ginkgo, ginseng, huang qi)	Prostate, Breast, Cervix	Delayed hypersensitivity Reaction, Hypokalemia, Hypokalemic hypochloremic metabolic alkalosis, Hyponatremia	Shariat SF³³, Cheng CJ³⁴, Lehmann D³⁵, Norred CL³⁶, Von Gruenigen VE³⁷
Mixture of herbs (ginseng, Fomes fomentarius, Inonotus obliquus, Phellinus linteus and selenium)	Lung	Drug interaction	Hwang SW³⁸
Phytoestrogen (Soy, Ginkgo biloba, Salvia officinalis, Salvia pratensis, Licorice root, Lentils)	Breast	Male Breast Cancer	Dimitrakakis C³⁹
Saw Palmetto	Meningioma	Intraoperative haemorrhage	Cheema P⁴⁰
Selaginella doederleinii	Cholangiocarcinoma	Severe reversible bone marrow suppression	Pan KY⁴¹
Catharanthus roseus	Hepatoma	Severe bone marrow	Wu ML⁴²
Sanguinara canadensis	Basal cell carcinoma	Bone metastasis	Laub DR⁴³