The Beneficial Effects of Metformin on Cancer Prevention and Therapy: A Comprehensive Review

Introduction: Metformin is a widely used drug in today s societies due to its specific effects in treating type II diabetes. Diabetes is one of the common diseases that may occur throughout human life, which can be one of effective factors in the occurrence of various types of cancer; and also diabetics are more likely to develop variety of cancers, such as colon, rectum, pancreas and liver cancers, compared to non-diabetic patients. the goal of this review is to update the research field on the multiple roles of the metformin in cancer prevention and treatment.Methods: In this review, we have searched Web of Science and PubMed databases and finally used a total of 98 articles, books and PhD theses (from 1918 to 2017) to summarize the recent advances in ancer treatment and prevention with metformin.Results: Generally metformin inhibits mTOR activity by activating ATM and LKB1 and then AMPK, and thus prevents protein synthesis and cell growth. Another point is that metformin can activate p53 by activating AMPK and thereby stop the cell cycle. This drug uses as a complementary therapeutic agent for cancer treatment, taking into account existing evidence that all of the anti-tumor properties of metformin are available.Conclusion: Given the potential of metformin in the treatment of cancer, it can be used in radiotherapy, chemotherapy and even used to improve the response to treatment in ADT. Generally, metformin can: (1) reduce the incidence of cancers, (2) reduce the mortality of cancers, (3) increase the response to treatment in cancer cells when using radiotherapy and chemotherapy, (4) optimum tumor movement and reduce the malignancy, (5) reduce the likelihood of relapse, (6) reduce the ADT s damaging effects. Taken together all the material and evidence available, all of which reflect the anti-tumor properties of metformin, this drug can be used as a complementary therapeutic agent for cancer treatment and prevention. In this review, we summarize the data from various experimental and clinical studies and highlight the effects of Metformin on Cancer therapeutic responses.

کلیدواژه ها:

Metformin ، AMPK Pathway ، mTOR Pathway ، LKB1 ، Radiation ، Prevention and treatment of cancer