SynthesisJournal of cancer research and clinical oncology2021
The role of metformin on lung cancer survival: the first systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies and randomized clinical trials.
Synthesis in Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- AI-Driven Combination Therapy for Counteracting Dysregulated Genes in Lung Adenocarcinoma: Contribution-Aware Metaheuristic for Drug Repurposing.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- AΙ-Driven Drug Repurposing: Applications and Challenges.Medicines (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Design, Synthesis, Anti-Proliferative Effects, and Mechanistic Details of Fluorine-Containing Biguanide Derivatives with Various Carbon Rings.Medicinal chemistry (Shariqah (United Arab Emirates)) · 2025Article
- Addition of metformin for non-small cell lung cancer patients receiving antineoplastic agents.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
- Metformin and Cancer, an Ambiguanidous Relationship.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Metformin: Sex/Gender Differences in Its Uses and Effects-Narrative Review.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2022Review
- Metformin: A Narrative Review of Its Potential Benefits for Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer and Dementia.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Drug repositioning in drug discovery of T2DM and repositioning potential of antidiabetic agents.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeTo assess the effects of metformin use on lung cancer (LC) survival according to summarized results from observational studies (OBs) and randomized clinical trials (RCTs).
methodsWe systematically searched electronic databases and, to our knowledge, for the first time, RCTs were included in a systematic review and meta-analysis about the role of metformin on LC survival. We carried out meta-analyses separately for OBs and RCTs. Analyses for overall survival (OS) concerning OBs were stratified by studies with and without time-dependent approach. Subgroup analyses were adopted for OBs to identify the sources of heterogeneity. Included studies were assessed for quality.
resultsWe identified ten OBs and four RCTs. For OBs, metformin use was associated with improved OS for LC patients. Only two studies used time-dependent approach in which a higher ratio was found when compared to the non-use of the time-dependent analysis in eight studies. OBs were classified as high quality but the risk of bias was "unclear" in eight OBs due to absence of the time-dependent analysis. For RCTs, metformin use was not beneficial for OS and neither for progression-free survival. Heterogeneous quality was found among RCTs. Sources of bias that could alter significantly the results or raise doubts were identified in RCTs.
conclusionTime-dependent analysis should be considered an appropriate strategy for OBs focused on the metformin use for LC patients' survival, and further studies applying this approach are required. More well-designed RCTs are needed to provide consistent results for the association between metformin use and LC survival.
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