In a new study from Massachusetts General Hospital, researchers found that the anti-diabetic drug phenformin may prompt stronger cancer-fighting activities than its sister compound metformin.
They that immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (which enable T cells to attack and kill cancer cells) in combination with phenformin may also be a promising way to repurpose this diabetic drug as an anti-cancer agent.
Metformin was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1995 and has since become the most prescribed drug for diabetes in the United States.
Phenformin was first prescribed for type 2 diabetes in the 1950s but was withdrawn from use in the late 1970s due to the risk of lactic acidosis, a potentially dangerous condition caused by excess buildup of lactic acid in the blood, which can disrupt the body’s pH balance.
Metformin and phenformin are members of a class of anti-diabetic drugs known as biguanides that originated from compounds in the French lilac, a plant known for its hypoglycemic properties since medieval times.
Preclinical studies have demonstrated that both forms of biguanides possess anti-tumor activity.
In the study, the team found that phenformin, but not metformin, enhances the efficacy of BRAF inhibitors. BRAF mutations are changes in cellular DNA that are found in about half of all skin cancer melanomas.
After years of preclinical research, the team has launched a phase 1 clinical trial evaluating phenformin with a combination of inhibitors (dabrafenib/trametinib) in patients with BRAF-mutated melanoma.
Another retrospective study has shown improved clinical outcomes in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer who received immune checkpoint inhibitors in combination with metformin, compared to the inhibitors alone.
With respect to mechanisms of action governing the anti-tumor activity of biguanides, the team noted that gut microbiota could play a key role.
They suggested that biguanides may affect the anti-tumor efficacy of therapies by modulating gut microbiota, in the same way metformin may lower blood glucose levels in diabetes patients in part by interacting with the microbiome.
If you care about cancer, please read studies about this stuff in the mouth could lead to oral cancer and findings of this depression drug may stop cancer growth.
For more information about cancer treatment and prevention, please see recent studies about common cholesterol-lowering drugs may do double duty on cancer and heart disease and results showing that this drug can give the immune system a double boost against cancer.
The study is published in Trends in Cancer. One author of the study is Bin Zheng, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2021 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
