For example, an increased risk of recurrent breast cancer has, specifically, been linked to obesity and diabetes in women. Breast Cancer Treatment Centers Among other possible explanations, elevated levels of insulin are thought to act as a stimulus for cancer cells to grow and divide. Other diabetes-associated molecules also appear to cause increased cancer cell proliferation, or growth, including insulin-like growth factor (IGF). Metformin, hypnotherapy-london also known as Glucophage, has become the most commonly prescribed oral medication for the treatment of diabetes.
Previous laboratory and public health studies have suggested that metformin may also be able to suppress cancer cell proliferation, and to reduce the risk of death due to cancer. However, thus far, there has been very little direct clinical research evidence available to support this hypothesis. A new clinical research study, just published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, sheds further light on the potential role of metformin as a possible new treatment for breast cancer. In this retrospective clinical study from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the medical records of 2,529 patients who received chemotherapy as initial treatment (neoadjuvant chemotherapy) for their early stage breast cancers, between 1990 and 2007, were reviewed. This group of breast cancer patients included 68 diabetic patients who were taking metformin, 87 diabetic patients who were not taking metformin, and 2,374 nondiabetic patients. All 2,529 patients subsequently went on to have surgery for their breast cancers, and the researchers then assessed the response of each woman’s breast cancer to their initial chemotherapy.
A pathological complete response to chemotherapy occurs when the pathologist can no longer find any evidence of residual cancer after surgical removal of the original cancer site. (In general, a pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy is associated with a better prognosis.) The incidence of pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy was then evaluated in each of the three groups of women involved in this clinical study.