Evidence Hub

Metformin and Prostate Cancer among Diabetic Men

David Margel

TSpace (University of Toronto), 2014

5,306 participants

Abstract

Background: This thesis is composed of three studies. In the first paper, we tested the association of metformin use with prostate cancer incidence. In the second paper, we examined the association of metformin use with all-cause and prostate cancer specific mortality. The final paper explored the benefit of detailed pathology review to predict mortality among diabetic men with prostate cancer. \nMethods: A total of 5306 incident diabetic men older than 66 who subsequently developed prostate cancer were identified using the Ontario Diabetes Database and the Ontario Cancer Registry between 1994-2008. The association of metformin use and risk of prostate cancer and its grade was tested with a nested case-control design using a conditional logistic regression model. We used a cohort design with a time dependent Cox-proportional hazard model to examine the association of metformin use and mortality. Finally, we employed a c-statistic and Net Reclassification Improvement analysis to study the impact of pathology abstraction on predicting mortality.\nResults: The data suggest metformin use was not associated with the risk of prostate cancer or its grade at presentation. However, each additional 6 month of metformin use was associated with a 24% decrease in prostate-cancer-specific and 8% decrease in all-cause mortality. Pathology abstraction improved the accuracy in predicting all-cause and prostate-cancer specific mortality. \nConclusions: In our study metformin use was not…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a case-control, done in people. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause. Reported size: 5,306 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free