This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Sign in
Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Metformin and pancreatic cancer risk

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Monotherapy with metformin appears to be associated with a lower risk of pancreatic cancer incidence than monotherapy with sulfonylurea (SU) in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) (1).

  • Epidemiological studies link administration of metformin with reduced incidence, recurrence and mortality of cancer in T2DMpatients.
  • Shi et al showed that there was survival benefit of metformin in pancreatic cancer patients concurrent with diabetes mellitus, suggesting metformin as an adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with pancreatic cancer.
  • Hu et al showed that compared with the no-use of metformin, metformin users with diabetes can reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer - compared with no use of metformin, the use of metformin could reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer in patients with type 2 diabetes by 18%.

Therefore, there seems to be some evidence suggesting benefit of use of metformin in terms of risk of pancreatic cancer in type 2 diabetes. There is no definitive evidence yet – but perhaps metformin may eventually become a cancer therapy as well as treatment for diabetes?

Reference:

  1. Mekuria AN, Ayele Y, Tola A, et al.Monotherapy with metformin versus sulfonylureas and risk of cancer in type 2 diabetic patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Diabetes Res 2019;2019:7676909
  2. Shi YQ, Zhou XC, Du P, Yin MY, Xu L, Chen WJ, Xu CF. Relationships are between metformin use and survival in pancreatic cancer
    patients concurrent with diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine (Baltimore). 2020 Sep 11;99(37):e21687.
  3. Hu J, Fan HD, Gong JP, Mao QS. The relationship between the use of metformin and the risk of pancreatic cancer in patients with diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Gastroenterol. 2023 Feb 24;23(1):50.

Related pages

Create an account to add page annotations

Create a free account

Add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation, such as a web address or phone number. This information will always be displayed when you visit this page

The content herein is provided for informational purposes and does not replace the need to apply professional clinical judgement when diagnosing or treating any medical condition. A licensed medical practitioner should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions.

Connect

Copyright 2024 Oxbridge Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of OmniaMed Communications Limited. All rights reserved. Any distribution or duplication of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited. Oxbridge Solutions receives funding from advertising but maintains editorial independence.