The effects of metformin on the survival of colorectal cancer patients with diabetes mellitus
International Journal of Cancer, 04/26/2012
Clinical Article
Lee JH et al. – Metformin use in CRC patients with diabetes is associated with lower risk of CRC-specific and overall mortality.
Methods- We identified 595 patients who were diagnosed both CRC and diabetes mellitus.
- Patients were compared by two groups; 258 diabetic patients taking metformin and 337 diabetic patients not taking metformin.
- Patient's demographics, clinical characteristics, overall mortality and CRC-specific mortality were analyzed.
- After a median follow-up of 41 months, there were 71 total deaths (27.5%) and 55 CRC-specific deaths (21.3%) among 258 patients who used metformin, compared with 136 total deaths (40.4%) and 104 CRC-specific deaths (30.9%) among 337 patients who did not use metformin.
- Metformin use was associated with decreased overall mortality (p = 0.018) and CRC-specific mortality (p = 0.042) by univariate analysis.
- After adjustment for clinically relevant factors, metformin use showed lower risk of overall mortality (HR, 0.66; 95% CI 0.476–0.923; p = 0.015) and CRC-specific mortality (HR, 0.66; 95% CI 0.45–0.975; p = 0.037) in CRC patients with diabetes.
