Need input on Decadron vs. Boswellia

[Lani]

I had posted on Boswellia serrata for brain mets about 4 years ago.

I took my reviewing 83 articles (abstracts) on pubmed before I found this one which only reports on one patient. I know others have tried it so go up to search on the burgundy bar above and type in boswellia and/or boswellia Lani
and see what else you come up with.

GIving Boswellia instead of steroids would be SO FAR from being standard of care that you couldn't see the other side of the standard of care ocean ie, based on perhaps one case or a few , anecdotal cases. I believe if anyone had published about a series of patients it would have been retrievable through pubmed, even if in a foreign language.

I didn't make an exhaustive search ie, it could have been mentioned in an article about alternative treatments for breast cancer brain mets, but usually if someone reports findings they will publish it using the agent they used in the title of the article.

Boswellia is a weak anti-inflammatory which seems to work vs. lipoxygenase, cyclooxygenase-1, nfkappa beta, mapkinase. Steroids are the gold standard to get swelling down quickly and if you do not get swelling down quickly around the brain, the brain suffers lack of blood flow, lack of oxygen and glucose and that can lead to death.

No wonder they don't usually play around looking for safer alternatives to steroids--the trials would be immoral ie denying the trial participant the chance of the standard treatment which has been shown to work despite side effects, and in so doing risking brain injury or death if the trial medicine does not work as well.

Here is the abstract and PMID number. GO to google and put in entrez pubmed, then go to entrez pubmed and put the PMID into the empty rectangular box. It was around article 83 of 192 when I searched pubmed under boswellia serrata.

By the way I have previously posted on intrathecal herceptin and other possibilities. Try the search function above for Lani brain metastases or Lani brain mets

You did not say how many brain mets your daughter has--it makes a difference in treatment.

There are quite a few ladies on this board who have first hand experience dealing with brain mets who can be helpful advising you and your daughter regarding the problems with sleep and other side effects. I am sure they will "pipe in" soon!

Good luck!