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Metformin Does Not Significantly Alter Longitudinal Dynamics of Clonal Hematopoiesis

Pareek E, Pershad Y, Zhao K, Uddin MM, Xue L, Vlasschaert C, Mack TM, Haessler J et al.

Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 2026

1,104 participants

Abstract

PURPOSE: Early intervention in patients with clonal hematopoiesis (CH) is an area of intense investigation with no currently approved agents. With recent mechanistic data on metformin as a possible therapeutic agent in CH and its availability in clinical practice, we sought to investigate the clonal dynamics of CH mutations in metformin users.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We analyzed longitudinal targeted deep sequencing of 1,104 CH mutations in 863 metformin-treated type 2 diabetic participants in two longitudinal cohorts: the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) and BioVU, with blood collected at a median of 15.8 and 6.1 years apart, respectively.

RESULTS: Metformin duration (per 6 months) was not significantly associated with the overall CH growth rate in WHI [β = -0.05%/year; 95% confidence interval (CI), -0.11 to 0.01; P = 0.08; n = 543] and in BioVU (β = -0.09%/year; 95% CI, -0.22 to 0.05; P = 0.20; n = 561). Inverse variance-weighted random-effects meta-analysis demonstrated a small, statistically significant association (β = -0.06%/year; 95% CI, -0.11 to -0.002; P = 0.04; n = 1,104) without significant heterogeneity (P = 0.60). These results were similar when only considering DNMT3A and DNMT3A-R882 clones.

CONCLUSIONS: In our cohorts, the duration of metformin use among diabetic users was associated with a small reduction in CH growth rate (-0.06%/year), which is modest compared with typical DNMT3A clonal growth rates of 5% to 7% annually. Metformin's clinical utility for…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 1,104 participants or records.

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