Pilot Study Evaluating the Efficacy and Safety of Metformin in Melanoma
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2014-02-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
In western countries, melanoma represents a major mistake of public health by its frequency,
lethality and the increasing of incidence. Surgery can cure melanoma diagnosed very early. In
other cases, it exists a risk of recurrence of lymph node and visceral. At the stage of
visceral metastases, the prognosis of melanoma is catastrophic, with a median survival of 6
months. Indeed, the reference chemotherapy by dacarbazine induces a very limited response
rate of 10-20%, the ipilimumab which has been authorized in the second intention, has a
response rate of 10%, and other available treatments don't have a superior efficiency.
Metformin is an oral antidiabetic of biguanides family which acts by inducing the activation
of AMPK, a molecule which is inactivated in many cancers including the melanoma. In agreement
with these data, several preclinical studies suggested that metformin has antineoplastic
activity. In the case of melanoma, a study published recently has showed that metformin
inhibits proliferation of melanoma cells in vitro and we confirmed for our part these results
in our laboratory (INSERM U895).