Title:Metformin and Anti-Cancer Therapeutics: Hopes for a More Enhanced Armamentarium Against Human Neoplasias?
Volume: 24
Issue: 1
Author(s): Maria-Ioanna Christodoulou, Andreas Scorilas.
Affiliation:
关键词:
二甲双胍盐酸盐，辅助药物，抗癌药剂，化学疗法，放射治疗，临床试验
摘要: Metformin, a natural product from Galega officinalis, is an oral drug, now in the
forefront of the therapeutic management of type-2 diabetes mellitus. A series of clinical observations
of the last decades, support that metformin may contribute to lowering the risk of
cancer development in diabetic patients, and also to improvement of response-to-therapy and
survival in individuals with certain types of malignancies. Moreover, several preclinical in
vitro and in vivo data indicate that metformin indeed exerts anti-proliferative capacities upon
tumor cells mediated through a variety of mechanisms. Interestingly, metformin has been
shown to act in synergy with certain anti-cancer agents and also to overcome chemo- and/or
radio-resistance of various types of tumors, providing a hopeful rationale for novel therapeutic
strategies against cancer development and progression. However, this remains an issue of
controversy, since significant contradictions exist among the available data. Limitations of
preclinical studies and caveats of epidemiological works, together with significant variances
among the several types of cancer and the fact that the mode of metformin’s action is largely
unknown, make longitudinal surveys urgently needed. Now, a plethora of large clinical trials
are active worldwide, aiming at determining the effect of metformin in the prevention or
prognosis of a variety of human cancers. If encouraging results arise, metformin will be an
attractive candidate adjuvant in the management of human neoplasias, due to its safety, tolerability
and low-cost, expected to mitigate adverse effects and no-response parameters of current
anti-cancer therapeutics, thus improving the quality of life and survival of cancer patients.
