Metformin may improve the prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer risk is increased in patients with type 2 diabetes, while being reduced by metformin treatment. However, it is unclear whether metformin could be associated with clinical outcomes of patients with pancreatic cancer and concurrent type 2 diabetes.A pooled analysis of 4 publications including 1,429 patients was performed to investigate the association of metformin and overall survival(OS) in patients with pancreatic cancer and concurrent type 2 diabetes.A borderline significant relative survival benefit was found in metformin treated patients compared with non-metformin treated patients (hazard ratio 0.80; 95% CI: 0.62-1.03).These results suggest that further investigation is warranted of whether metformin may benefit the survival of patients with pancreatic cancer and concurrent type 2 diabetes.