Anti-diabetic therapies affect risk of pancreatic cancer

By Donghui Li, S. J. Yeung, Manal M. Hassan, M. Konopleva, J. Abbruzzese. Gastroenterology, 2009

616 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background & Aims Anti-diabetic drugs have been found to have various effects on cancer in experimental systems and in epidemiological studies, although the association between these therapeutics and the risk of human pancreatic cancer has not been explored. We investigated the effect of anti-diabetic therapies on the risk of pancreatic cancer. Methods A hospital-based, case-control study was conducted at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from 2004 through 2008 involving 973 patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (including 259 diabetics) and 863 controls (including 109 diabetics). Information on diabetes history and other risk factors was collected by personal interview. The frequencies of use of insulin, insulin secretagogues, thiazolidinediones, metformin and other antidiabetic medications among diabetics were compared between cases and controls. The risk of pancreatic cancer was estimated using unconditional logistic regression analysis. Results Diabetics that had taken metformin had a significantly lower risk of pancreatic cancer, compared with those that had not taken metformin (OR=0.38; 95% CI, 0.22–0.69; P=0.001) with adjustments for demographic, clinical and risk factors. This difference remained statistically significant when the analysis was restricted to patients with a duration of diabetes >2 years or those never used insulin. In contrast, diabetics that had taken insulin or insulin secretagogues had a significantly higher risk of pancreatic cancer, compared with diabetics that had not take these drugs. Use of thiazolidinediones did not significantly modify pancreatic cancer risk. Conclusions Metformin use was associated with reduced risk, and insulin or insulin secretagogues use were associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer in diabetics.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Oncology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ad4f3a742158771fd7f22307b6c7b7552de21753

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In Molecular Biology

1. B. Viollet
2. Marcello Maggiolini
3. Rosamaria Lappano

In Oncology

1. Marcello Maggiolini
2. Rosamaria Lappano

Citations in the corpus

• Cellular and molecular mechanisms of metformin: an overview. (2012, background): “Importantly, metformin use has been associated with a significant decrease in the relative risk of specific cancers, such as prostate, pancreas and breast cancers [110-112].”
• Epidemiology of pancreatic cancer: an overview (2009, background): “Metformin, an oral antidiabetic agent, is associated with a decreased risk of pancreatic cancer, whereas insulin and insulin secretagogues increase the risk of pancreatic cancer”
• G protein-coupled receptors: novel targets for drug discovery in cancer (2010, result): “This is in agreement with previous epidemiological studies that showed a positive relationship between the administration of metformin and a reduced risk of pancreatic, breast and prostate tumours in patients with diabete”
• Metformin and Cancer Risk in Diabetic Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (2010, background): “…history, family history of PCa –among Caucasians 0.56 (0.32-1.00)* –among African-Americans 1.62 (0.53-5.02) –diabetes vs no diabetes: 0.66 (0.39-1.11) Li et al., 2009 (USA, TX) (38) non metformin users Metformin use for pancreatic cancer: Smoking, alcohol use, BMI, duration of diabetes, insulin…”