Metformin appeared to slow prostate cancer growth ...

Xinhua News Agency ? CEIS

04-03-12

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Metformin appeared to slow prostate cancer growth: study

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Xinhua) ? The use of metformin in men with prostate cancer before prostatectomy helped to reduce certain metabolic parameters and slow the growth rate of the cancer, according to the results of a phase II study.

Anthony Joshua, staff medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Canada, presented the data at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2012, held in Chicago on March 31 ? April 4.

Metformin is the most commonly prescribed medication for diabetes. Prior laboratory research has suggested that metformin may also help to improve prognosis in patients with prostate cancer by slowing the growth of the cancerous cells.

To follow up on the laboratory clues, the researchers evaluated 22 men with confirmed prostate cancer who had been assigned up to 500 mg of metformin three times a day prior to undergoing prostatectomy.

?This gave us the ability to compare what the prostate cancer looked like when it was first diagnosed to what it looked like when the prostate cancer was removed from the body,? said Joshua. ?We were able to directly measure the effect of metformin on the prostate cancer.?

Patients were assigned metformin for a median duration of 41 days. During that time, none of the men reported grade three adverse events, and all of them underwent prostatectomy with no adverse effect related to use of metformin.

The researchers found that metformin significantly reduced fasting glucose, insulin growth factor-1, body mass index and waist- to-hip ratio.

In addition, ?although these are preliminary results, metformin appeared to reduce the growth rate of prostate cancer in a proportion of men,? Joshua said. ?Also, it appeared to reduce one of the main growth pathways that may have contributed to the overall growth of the tumor.?

These results may have implications for men with prostate cancer who also have diabetes or early undiagnosed diabetes and for men with prostate cancer whose tumors have characteristics that make them sensitive to metformin, according to Joshua.

(c) 2012 Xinhua News Agency ? CEIS. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

Copyright Xinhua News Agency ? CEIS 2012

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