medwireNews: Metformin does not improve progression-free survival (PFS) for patients without diabetes who require chemoradiotherapy for stage IIIA or IIIB non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), suggests research presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Metformin was initiated 2 weeks before treatment began, with patients assigned to use the agent at a dose of 2000 mg/day during concurrent radiation and carboplatin–paclitaxel treatment, and alongside consolidation chemotherapy.
Median PFS was a comparable 12.2 months with metformin and 16.6 months without, and no benefit was detected when assessing only patients who were adherent to their metformin regimen, said Theodoros Tsakiridis (McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada).
Nor was there a significant improvement with metformin for overall survival, or the rates of local or distant disease failure, although the presenter did note there was a numerically lower rate of disease-related deaths in the metformin arm.
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2019 ASCO Annual Meeting; Chicago, Illinois, USA: 31 May–4 June
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