Anti-diabetes drug effective against cancer: study

From CTV News:
A new study is providing even more evidence that a widely-used anti-diabetes drug may also be effective in fighting breast cancer.

The new study from Harvard Medical School found that combining metformin, sold as Glucophage, with the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin, reduced breast cancer tumours faster than doxorubicin alone, when tested on mice.

What's more, the drug combo also prolonged remission in the mice longer than chemotherapy alone.

The researchers, writing in the journal Cancer Research, say the metformin combo seems to work by targeting the cancer's stem cells and may improve breast cancer outcomes in people.

Evidence is growing that part of the reason why many cancers recur is that current treatments do not target a cancer's stem cells, which can resist chemotherapy and regenerate the various cell types in a tumour. So some researchers have been investigating therapies that selectively target cancer stem cells. ...more