Trial reportCancer chemotherapy and pharmacology2025
Targeting insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) by using metformin in non-diabetic metastatic breast cancer female patients: a randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in Cancer chemotherapy and pharmacology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04143282 (Evaluation of the Effect of Metformin on Metastatic Breast Cancer as Adjuvant Treatment), which is not on this map. Cited by 1 paper.
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.
Evaluation of the Effect of Metformin on Metastatic Breast Cancer as Adjuvant Treatment
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors in breast cancer patients on endocrine therapy: a targeted strategy to mitigate long-term cardiometabolic risk.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeInsulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) may play a role in breast cancer (BC) development. Metformin was found to exert anti-cancer function in several studies, partly by interference with the IGF-1 signaling pathway and reducing its blood levels. Therefore, our study aimed primarily to find out how metformin affected both IGF-1 levels and clinical outcomes in metastatic breast cancer patients (MBC) and secondarily to identify the correlation between post-treatment IGF-1 decline rates and BC prognosis and metastasis.
methodsFifty MBC female patients were randomly assigned to either the control group (who were administered conventional chemotherapy) and the intervention group (treated with metformin plus chemotherapy). An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect IGF-1 levels at baseline and three months post-treatment.
resultsIGF-1 levels in the metformin group were significantly lower than in the control group (p = 0.011). Furthermore, the percentage of post-treatment drop in IGF-1 levels differed significantly between the control and metformin groups (p = 0.001). Patients whose IGF-1 levels increased after treatment had a statistically significant occurrence of progressive disease (disease progression) in the control group higher than in the metformin group (92.9% versus 87.5%).
conclusionThe co-administration of metformin with chemotherapy significantly inhibited the IGF-1 signaling pathway, which reduced progressive diseases and reduced mortality in non-diabetic MBC patients. However, while metformin exerts a robust IGF-1 lowering effect, combination chemotherapy and low metastasis burden may further enhance this effect. TRAIL REGISTRATION: Our trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (ID no. NCT04143282).
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Registered trials
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