Metformin Decreases the Dose of Chemotherapy for Prolonging Tumor Remission in Mouse Xenografts Involving Multiple Cancer Cell Types

TLDR: It is shown that met formin is equally effective when given orally together with paclitaxel, carboplatin, and doxorubicin, indicating that metformin works together with a variety of standard chemotherapeutic agents.

Abstract: Metformin, the first-line drug for treating diabetes, selectively kills the chemotherapy-resistant, sub-population of cancer stem cells in genetically distinct types of breast cancer cell lines. In mouse xenografts, injection of metformin and the chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin near the tumor is more effective than either drug alone in blocking tumor growth and preventing relapse. Here, we show that metformin is equally effective when given orally together with paclitaxel, carboplatin, and doxorubicin indicating that metformin works together with a variety of standard chemotherapeutic agents. In addition, metformin has comparable effects on tumor regression and preventing relapse when metformin combined with a 4-fold reduced dose of doxorubicin that is not effective as a monotherapy. Lastly, the combination of metformin and doxorubicin prevents relapse in xenografts generated with prostate and lung cancer cell lines. These observations provide further evidence for the cancer stem cell hypothesis for cancer relapse, as well as an experimental rationale for using metformin as part of combinatorial therapy in a variety of clinical settings and for reducing the chemotherapy dose in cancer patients.