Diabetes Drug Appears to Fight Lung Cancer — But Only in Overweight or Obese Patients | PR Newswire [Video]

Retrospective study led by Roswell Park’s Dr. Sai Yendamuri provides long-sought evidence

• Metformin seems to strengthen immune system’s tumor-killing response
• Findings led to current lung cancer prevention clinical trial
• Study appears in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute

, /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — A widely accessible drug commonly used to control blood glucose levels in diabetic patients has the potential to strengthen the effects of immunotherapy and improve recurrence-free survival in people with lung cancer who are overweight or obese, according to a recently published article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Sai Yendamuri, MD, MBA, FACS, Chief Strategy Officer and Chair of Thoracic Surgery at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, led the retrospective study as co-senior author.

“Our work shows that the anticancer effect of metformin is active only in the context of obesity,” says Dr. Yendamuri. “We observed longer recurrence-free survival in overweight patients who took metformin and underwent surgery.”

Over the past 20 years, researchers have seen evidence suggesting that metformin might slow cancer progression, but the …