Published Date : 2019-10-17, Author :
A recent laboratory study has shown, for the first time, that the natural stiffening of the ovaries in ovarian cancer happens with age, and also hypothesizes that the diabetes drug metformin may be able to stop this process. Ovarian cancer is one of the leading cancers in women, with a five-year survival rate of 45%. There exists no reliable screening test to detect cancer early, and the options available for its prevention include birth control pills that cut down the chances of ovarian cancer by half, or removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes. The study has been published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Dr. Curtis McCloskey, the lead author of the study, says that fibrosis occurs when body tissues are repeatedly injured and inflamed, and the residual hard collagen fibers accumulate over time, like a scar on the skin. Cancer cells breed in these fibrotic tissues, adds McCloskey. The team discovered that fibrosis of the ovaries is a normal part of aging, typically surfacing after menopause. During the research, the team surprisingly found an ovary from a 69-year-old woman that had no fibrosis, and her medical records indicated that she had been taking metformin, a drug prescribed for Type-2 diabetes. A Taiwan-based study had previously found an 82% lower occurrence of ovarian cancer among Type 2 diabetes patients who were prescribed metformin. The team then performed a series of experiments to examine the connection between ovarian fibrosis, metformin, and aging.
Their study showed that stopping ovulation prevented ovarian fibrosis with age, which indicates that the two might be linked together. Dr. Vanderhyden, Senior Scientist, Ottawa Hospital; Professor and Corinne Boyer Chair, Ovarian Cancer Research, University of Ottawa, hopes that metformin will someday be proven as an effective treatment for women who are at high risk of developing cancer, but who cannot remove their ovaries because they still want to reproduce. However, the findings will need to be confirmed in more human ovaries and mice models before proceeding with clinical trials.