ReviewNature reviews. Clinical oncology2013
Beyond aspirin-cancer prevention with statins, metformin and bisphosphonates.
Review in Nature reviews. Clinical oncology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06459310 (A Phase II Exploratory Clinical Study Investigating the Geroprotective Effect of Metformin in Middle-aged and Elderly People), which is not on this map. Cited by 91 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
A Phase II Exploratory Clinical Study Investigating the Geroprotective Effect of Metformin in Middle-aged and Elderly People
Who cites it
91 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 161 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of metformin on biomarkers associated with breast cancer outcomes: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and dose-response of randomized clinical trials.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2020 · on this mapPooled it
- Risk-reducing medications for primary breast cancer: a network meta-analysis.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Effect of Metformin and Statin Use on Survival in Pancreatic Cancer Patients: a Systematic Literature Review and Meta-analysis.Current medicinal chemistry · 2018Pooled it
- Statins intake and risk of liver cancer: A dose-response meta analysis of prospective cohort studies.Medicine · 2017Pooled it
- Systematic review with network meta-analysis: statins and risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.Oncotarget · 2016Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Trial
- Effect of Metformin on Breast Density in Overweight/Obese Premenopausal Women.Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity : targets and therapy · 2021Trial
- Atorvastatin as a pleiotropic anticancer agent: mechanisms, evidence, and therapeutic repurposing potential.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Cholesterol metabolism and cancer: Molecular mechanisms, immune regulation and an epidemiological perspective (Review).International journal of molecular medicine · 2025Review
- In Vitro Investigation of the Antiproliferative and Antimetastatic Effects of Atorvastatin: A Focus on Cervical and Head and Neck Cancers.Pharmaceutics · 2025Article
- Drug combination-wide association studies of cancer.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Medications to reduce breast cancer risk: a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2025Article
- CPDP: Contrastive Protein-Drug Pre-Training for Novel Drug Discovery.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Lipid metabolism in multiple myeloma: pathogenesis, therapeutic opportunities, and future directions.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Review
- Article
- Treating Hypercholesterolemia in Older Adults for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Events.Drugs & aging · 2024Review
- BMP4-Induced Suppression of Breast Cancer Metastasis Is Associated with Inhibition of Cholesterol Biosynthesis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Article
- Assessing the role of statin therapy in bladder cancer: evidence from a Mendelian Randomization study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
31 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cancer risk reduction using pharmacological means is an attractive modern preventive approach that supplements the classical behavioural prevention recommendations. Medications that are commonly used by large populations to treat a variety of common, non-cancer-related, medical situations are an attractive candidate pool. This Review discusses three pharmacological agents with the most evidence for their potential as cancer chemopreventive agents: anti-hypercholesterolaemia medications (statins), an antidiabetic agent (metformin) and antiosteoporosis drugs (bisphosphonates). Data are accumulating to support a significant negative association of certain statins with cancer occurrence or survival in several major tumour sites (mostly gastrointestinal tumours and breast cancer), with an augmented combined effect with aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Metformin, but not other hypoglycaemic drugs, also seems to have some antitumour growth activity, but the amount of evidence in human studies, mainly in breast cancer, is still limited. Experimental and observational data have identified bisphosphonates as a pharmacological group that could have significant impact on incidence and mortality of more than one subsite of malignancy. At the current level of evidence these potential chemopreventive drugs should be considered in high-risk situations or using the personalized approach of maximizing individual benefits and minimizing the potential for adverse effects with the aid of pharmacogenetic indicators.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.