Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 7, 2019; 25(17): 2133-2143
Published online May 7, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i17.2133
Efficacy of Detoxsan® powder on diarrhea caused by gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors
Thomas Langbein, Wilfried Dathe, Anika Deuerling, Richard P Baum
Thomas Langbein, Anika Deuerling, Richard P Baum, Theranostics Center for Molecular Radiotherapy and Molecular Imaging, Zentralklinik Bad Berka, Bad Berka D-99437, Germany
Wilfried Dathe, Scientific Managment, Heck Bio-Pharma GmbH, Winterbach D-73650, Germany
Author contributions: Langbein T, Dathe W, Deuerling A, and Baum RP contributed to study design; Langbein T and Baum RP contributed to patient recruitment; Dathe W and Deuerling A contributed to data collection, data analysis; Dathe W wrote the first draft of the paper; Langbein T and Baum RP contributed to critical revision of the paper; Baum RP contributed to final approval of article.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the scientific direction of the Theranostics Center for Molecular Radiotherapy and Molecular Imaging, Zentralklinik Bad Berka in Germany.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardians, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Dathe W is an external advisor for Heck Bio-Pharma GmbH and licenser for Detoxsan®.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors declare that the STROBE statement was followed in the article entitled ‘Efficacy of Detoxsan® powder on diarrhea caused by gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors’ according to the checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wilfried Dathe, PhD, DSc, Doctor, External Consultant in Medical Research, Scientific Managment, Heck Bio-Pharma GmbH, Gerberstraße 15, Winterbach D-73650, Germany. wilfried.dathe@gmx.de
Telephone: +49-177-2401817 Fax: +49-345-6846110
Received: November 25, 2018
Peer-review started: November 26, 2018
First decision: December 28, 2018
Revised: March 27, 2019
Accepted: March 29, 2019
Article in press: March 30, 2019
Published online: May 7, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: A well characterized zeolite (Detoxsan® powder) was applied to patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) of the gastrointestinal tract suffered from therapy-refractory diarrhea either by its frequency or by watery stool, despite receiving standard pharmacotherapy according to the guidelines for carcinoid syndrome and comorbidities. In 14 of 20 patients (70%) bowel movement rate could be normalized. Thus, Detoxsan® powder acts as an adsorbent and is able to reduce significantly symptoms of diarrhea in patients suffering from NETs. However, dose and period of intake have to be individually adjusted.