The association between the use of metformin and other antidiabetic drugs and the risk of pancreatic cancer is examined in a paper published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology. The study suggests that although long-term use of metformin was not associated with an altered risk of pancreatic cancer overall, it may be linked to a decreased risk of the disease in women.

Previous research has suggested that metformin, widely used to treat type 2 diabetes, may be effective for the prevention and/or treatment of pancreatic cancer. Christoph Meier and colleagues conducted a large case-control analysis of 2,763 patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 16,578 matched controls.

Although metformin use was not found to be associated with a significantly decreased risk of pancreatic cancer in general, the analysis yielded some evidence that female long-term users of the drug may be less likely to develop pancreatic cancer.

This unexpected result should be interpreted with caution given the limited number of exposed cases and controls, and the absence of an obvious patho-physiological explanation, the authors write.

The study also shows that long-term use of sulfonylureas (another class of antidiabetic drugs) and of insulin was associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer; the former effect was seen mainly in women and the latter primarily in men. Additional research is required to delineate the role that gender may play in the association between diabetes and pancreatic cancer.

Source: Nature