Effects of Metformin on Cancer Survival Among Men Diagnosed with Advanced Prostate Cancer Treated with Androgen-Deprivation Therapy: Emulating a Target Trial

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Background/Objectives: Metformin is one of the most frequently used concomitant medications among prostate cancer (PCa) patients. However, the effects of metformin on all-cause and PCa-specific mortality among men diagnosed with advanced/metastatic PCa treated with androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) remain poorly understood, but they may be specifically explained by emulating a target trial. Methods: We emulated a target trial of metformin therapy and survival using observational data on 7361 patients diagnosed with advanced PCa, who were treated with ADT, from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database (2008–2019), with completed follow-up until 2020. We included patients with diabetes, and participants were assigned as either “initiator of metformin within 6 months after advanced PCa diagnosis” or “non-initiator of metformin.” We estimated mortality risks using Cox proportional hazards models with adjustment for risk factors via inverse probability weighting using both intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses. Results: Over 13 years of follow-up, with a maximum 3 years of follow-up after PCa diagnosis, all-cause mortality occurred in 52 metformin initiators (47.7%) versus 3052 non-initiators (42.1%), while PCa-specific mortality occurred in 36 initiators (33.0%) versus 1919 non-initiators (26.5%). In the intention-to-treat analysis, metformin initiation was not associated with all-cause mortality (Hazard Ratio [HR] = 1.38, 95% CI: 0.98–1.95) or PCa-specific mortality (HR = 0.99, 95% CI: 0.63–1.55). Similarly, in per-protocol analysis, there was no evidence of risk reduction with all-cause (HR = 1.20, 95% CI = 0.80–1.81) or PCa-specific mortality (HR = 1.45, 95% CI = 0.88–2.38) after adjusting for time-varying covariates and allowing a 30-day gap for metformin discontinuation, adjusted for via inverse probability weighting. Conclusions: Our findings align with prior randomized trials showing no survival benefit of metformin in advanced PCa patients receiving ADT. Timing of metformin discontinuation also showed no significant effect. However, the small size of the metformin initiator group precluded subgroup analyses for hormone-sensitive (HSPC) and castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), limiting our ability to explore potential differential effects.

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