Current status and frontier tracking of clinical trials on Metformin for cancer treatment

Metformin has been used clinically for more than six decades. Over time, numerous remarkable effects of metformin beyond the clinic have been discovered and discussed. Metformin has been shown to have a favorable impact on cancer therapy in addition to its clinically recognized hypoglycemic effect. However, the antitumor efficacy of metformin in humans has not been clearly demonstrated yet. Hence, a systematic analysis of the existing trials is necessary.

Here, we retrieved clinical trials from the Clinical Trials.gov database to overview the clinical development of metformin for the treatment of cancer, analyze existing clinical results, and summarize some promising applications for specific cancer therapies.

The potential application of metformin contains three directions: Firstly, improvement of metabolic factors associated with treatment effects, such as insulin resistance and peripheral neuropathy. Secondly, in combination with immune checkpoint blockade effects. Finally, use it for the endocrine treatment of hormone-dependent cancers.

Although the outcomes of metformin as a repurposed agent in some trials have been unsatisfactory, it still has the potential to be used in select cancer therapy settings.