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Associations of metformin therapy treatment with endometrial cancer risk and prognosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Hui Xie, Muhan Li, Yu-Ling Zheng

Gynecologic Oncology, 2024

14 citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Several abstract studies have demonstrated that metformin may be beneficial for preventing and treating endometrial cancer (EC), while the results have been inconsistent and inconclusive. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the association between metformin use and the incidence and mortality of endometrial cancer in diabetic patients.

METHODS

A systematic literature search was performed in Pubmed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, SinoMed, CNKI, Wanfang Data, and VIP from inception to November 2022. The outcome measures were hazard ratios (HRs) comparing the EC incidence and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) on metformin and non-metformin. A random or fixed-effects model was applied for data analysis, and subgroup analysis was performed to look for factors of heterogeneity. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) assessed the evidence's certainty.

RESULTS

Eleven studies reported data on EC incidence. The pooled results suggested that the use of metformin was associated with a significantly higher incidence of EC (HR = 1.17, 95% CI 1.09-1.26, P < 0.0001). Further, seventeen studies were included for survival analysis. The pooled data showed that metformin could significantly decrease all-cause mortality (HR = 0.62, 95% CI 0.52-0.74, P < 0.00001) and endometrial cancer-specific mortality (HR = 0.95, 95% CI 0.90, 1.00, P = 0.03). Finally, we noted that metformin was…

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