Melatonin in Cancer Treatment: A Scientific Study

Melatonin is an endogenous hormone with extensive documentation of its use for the treatment of sleep disorders. Parallel to this action, melatonin has been exploring different medical areas and proving beneficial for various other pathologies. This work presents a meta-analysis of studies conducted with melatonin in cancer treatment, concluding that its adjunctive use in oncological treatment may improve survival and reduce chemotherapy side effects.

Melatonin (MLT) is known to possess potent antioxidant, antiproliferative, immunomodulatory, and hormonal modulatory properties. Clinical evidence suggests that MLT may play a potential role in cancer treatment. The authors conducted a systematic review of the effects of MLT in conjunction with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, supportive care, and palliative care, assessing one-year survival rates, complete response, partial response, disease stability, and chemotherapy-associated toxicities.

The authors searched seven databases: MEDLINE (February 1966 to 2010), AMED (February 1985 to 2010), Alt HealthWatch (February 1995 to 2010), CINAHL (February 1982 to 2010), Nursing & Allied Health Collection: Basic (February 1985 to 2010), Cochrane Database (2009), and the Chinese database CNKI (February 1979 to 2010). All randomized trials, including MLT or a similar control group without MLT, were included.

The authors included data from 21 trials involving solid tumors. The pooled relative risk (RR) for the one-year mortality rate was 0.63 (95% Confidence Interval [CI] = 0.53-0.74; P <0.001). A superior effect was found for complete response, partial response, and disease stability with RRs of 2.33 (95% CI = 1.29-4.20), 1.90 (1.43-2.51), and 1.51 (1.08-2.12), respectively. In trials combining MLT with chemotherapy, MLT as an adjuvant decreased the one-year mortality rate (RR = 0.60; 95% CI = 0.54-0.67) and improved outcomes such as complete response, partial response, and disease stability. The pooled RRs were 2.53 (1.36-4.71), 1.70 (1.37-2.12), and 1.15 (1.00-1.33), respectively. In these studies, MLT also significantly reduced asthenia, leukopenia, nausea and vomiting, hypotension, and thrombocytopenia.

MLT may benefit cancer patients who are also receiving chemotherapy, radiotherapy, supportive care, or palliative therapy by improving survival and reducing the side effects of chemotherapy.

The research AUTHORS were: Dugald Seely, Ping Wu, Heidi Fritz, Deborah A. Kennedy, Teresa Tsui, Andrew J. E. Seely, and Edward Mills. The work was published in Integrative Cancer Therapies journal - December/2012.

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