Is Metformin Use Associated with Prolonged Overall Survival in Patients with Soft Tissue Sarcoma? A SEER-Medicare Study
Authors: Hutchinson Ian D. , Ata Ashar , DiCaprio Matthew R. 
Published: November 2021

Background

Metformin, an oral drug used to treat patients with diabetes, has been associated with prolonged survival in patients with various visceral carcinomas. Although the exact mechanisms are unknown, preclinical translational studies demonstrate that metformin may impair tumor cellular metabolism, alter matrix turnover, and suppress oncogenic signaling pathways. Currently used chemotherapeutic agents have not been very successful in the adjuvant setting or for treating patients with metastatic sarcomas. We wanted to know whether metformin might be associated with improved survival in patients with a soft tissue sarcoma.

Questions/purposes

In patients treated for a soft tissue sarcoma, we asked: (1) Is there an association between metformin use and longer survival? (2) How does this association differ, if at all, among patients with and without the diagnosis of diabetes?

Methods

The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare (SEER-Medicare) database was used to identify patients with a diagnosis of soft tissue sarcoma from 2007 to 2016. Concomitant medication use was identified using National Drug Codes using the Medicare Part D event files. This database was chosen because of the large number of captured sarcoma patients, availability of tumor characteristics, and longitudinal linkage of Medicare data. A total of 14,650 patients were screened for inclusion. Patients with multiple malignancies, diagnosis at autopsy, or discrepant linkage to the Medicare database were excluded. Overall, 4606 patients were eligible for the study: 598 patients taking metformin and 4008 patients not taking metformin. A hazard of mortality (hazard ratio) was analyzed comparing patients taking metformin with those patient groups not taking metformin and expressed in terms of a 95% confidence interval. Cox regression analysis was used to control for patient-specific, disease-specific, and treatment-specific covariates.

Results

Having adjusted for disease-, treatment-, and patient-specific characteristics, patients taking metformin experienced prolonged survival compared with all patients not taking metformin (HR 0.76 [95% CI 0.66 to 0.87]). Associated prolonged survival was also seen when patients taking metformin were compared with those patients not on metformin irrespective of a diabetes diagnosis (HR 0.79 [95% CI 0.66 to 0.94] compared with patients with a diagnosis of diabetes and HR 0.77 [95% CI 0.67 to 0.89] compared with patients who did not have a diagnosis of diabetes).

Conclusion

Without suggesting causation, we found that even after controlling for confounding variables such as Charlson comorbidity index, tumor grade, size, stage, and surgical/radiation treatment modalities, there was an association between metformin use and increased survival in patients with soft tissue sarcoma. When considered separately, this association persisted in patients not on metformin with and without a diabetes diagnosis. Although metformin is not normally prescribed to patients who do not have a diabetes diagnosis, these data support further study, and if these findings are substantiated, it might lead to the performance of multicenter, prospective clinical trials about the use of metformin as an adjuvant therapy for the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma in patients with and without a preexisting diabetes diagnosis.

Level of Evidence

Level III, therapeutic study.