Lentinula edodes for Gastrointestinal Cancer Patients Undergoing Cancer Chemotherapy

It is desirable for advanced gastrointestinal cancer patients to continue chemotherapy with fewer adverse effects as long as possible. Oral adjuvant is attractive for them because it has little burden. Lentinula edodes has long been utilized as an edible mushroom in East Asia. A 1969 report showed that Lentinan, a high molecular weight neutral polysaccharide purified from a hot water-extract of Lentinula edodes (Chihara et al., 1969), has antitumor activity. Since then, Lentinan has been approved as an antitumor injection in Japan. Progress has since been made in research into the antitumor and immunomodulatory actions of the mycelia of Lentinula edodes (Sugano et al., 1982; Sugano et al., 1985; Liu et al., 1998) and Lentinula edodes mycelia extract (LEM) with hot water before germination and after culturing in a medium composed of bagasse and rice bran, is currently utilized as oral adjuvant for cancer patient .LEM has also antitumor and immunomodulatory effects(Kojima et al., 2010; Tanaka, 2011) and LEM in combination with postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy has been reported to improve the quality of life (QOL) (Nagashima,2005). In this study, the influence of LEM on immune function and adverse events resulting from cancer chemotherapy were investigated among advanced cancer patients.