Can oleander be used in cancer treatment?

Other names for oleander

• Adelfa - Karavira
• Oleandrin (English equivalent)
• Anvirzel (brand name)
• Nerium oleander (scientific name)

What is oleander? What are its medical effects?

Oleander is a shrub found in North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean Basin and Southeast Asia. It has been tried in traditional medicine for hemorrhoids, stomach ulcers and leprosy. Substances in oleander leaves have chemical properties similar to those of a commonly used heart drug, digoxin , and its use carries a risk of digoxin poisoning . Digoxin is a cardiac glycoside drug used for approximately 200 years to treat heart failure and certain heart rhythm disorders, and oleander is one source from which digoxin is obtained.

However, the main question about oleander, and the focus of research, is whether it is effective in cancer treatment. In many studies, oleander’s tumor-shrinking (anticancer) effects have been investigated because it was observed in different cancer cell lines to trigger programmed cell death, apoptosis .

Derived from oleander and not approved for cancer treatment, Anvirzel is an alternative medicine product that showed cell-killing and growth-inhibiting effects in certain cancer cell lines in laboratory studies. It was also observed to increase prostate cancer cells’ sensitivity to radiotherapy . However, it is not yet possible to say that it has the same effect in the human body. Oleander has also been tried in treatments for heart disease, AIDS and hepatitis.

Oleander also has a particular significance for cancer medicine and our country: in 1973, general surgeon Dr. Ziya Özel claimed that oleander could treat cancer. This announcement caused a sensation, and many patients used oleander in the hope of healing. As mentioned above, oleander affects the heart, and some patients were harmed. Following this development, Dr. Ziya Özel began seeking research institutions abroad. He met with many countries and pharmaceutical companies and tried to show that oleander extract worked in cancer treatment through the immune system. After nearly 20 years of effort, oleander extract entered the United States market in 1992 under the registered trademark Anvirzel, but as an immune-system-regulating (immunomodulatory) supplement, not a cancer drug. Despite decades and numerous scientific studies, this alternative product with oleander extract has not demonstrated efficacy or received approval for cancer treatment. The most concrete cancer data we have on oleander come from a clinical study whose results were announced in 2006 for phase-1, but which was not followed up.

For which diseases is oleander being tried as a treatment?

Oleander in cancer treatment

In laboratory studies, oleander shows some anticancer activities in cancer cell lines, but these have not been confirmed by further clinical studies.

There is no scientific evidence for its claimed treatment of the following diseases:

• Heart failure
• Hepatitis C
• AIDS

Important warnings about oleander use

1. The unprocessed plant from which Anvirzel’s extract is obtained—oleander—is extremely toxic. Studies report that consuming even a single oleander leaf can cause death. 
2. Oleander use causes effects similar to digoxin poisoning: vomiting, abdominal pain, bluish skin discoloration, low blood pressure, low body temperature and dizziness appearing a few hours after consumption, as well as respiratory paralysis and death.

Do not use it under any circumstances in the following situations

• If you take the heart drug digoxin: Anvirzel contains cardiac glycosides, the same substance as the active chemical in digoxin. Taking them together causes digoxin poisoning.
• If you take P-glycoprotein-type drugs: Oleander leaf extract increases blood levels of these drugs.
• If your blood calcium level is high
• If your blood potassium level is low 
• If your heart rate is much lower than normal 
• If your heart rate is much faster than normal 
• If you have heart failure.

Cases of harm from oleander use reported in the medical literature

• Consumption of oleander leaves resulted in death in an adult man with diabetes. High levels of oleander compounds were found in his blood. 
• Metastatic synovial sarcoma of the knee was diagnosed in a 43-year-old patient thought to have died after injecting oleander extract into a muscle daily for 2 months. He reportedly developed cardiac arrest after nausea, vomiting, severe abdominal pain and bloating, and a gradual decrease in liver enzymes.

In conclusion

Oleander may inhibit the growth of certain cancer cells, but it cannot yet be presented as a cancer treatment, and Anvirzel is not a cancer drug approved in the United States by the FDA or by any other international medical authority. Therefore, without seeing phase-2 and phase-3 clinical trial results, one cannot say oleander is effective in cancer treatment. While preparing this article, we investigated in detail again and did not encounter any worldwide clinical trial testing oleander or Anvirzel for cancer treatment. This means that scientific circles have accepted that oleander will not work in cancer treatment. In addition, using oleander in the hope of healing can have serious consequences, including death.