Viji Shridhar and Sanjeev Kumar, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, found that the drug metformin which originates from the French Lilac plant and known to have anticancer properties, may hold promise for ovarian cancer.
Researchers compared the survival of 61 patients with ovarian cancer taking metformin and 178 patients who were not taking metformin.
Sixty-seven per cent of the patients who took metformin were surviving after five years, compared with 47 per cent of those who did not take the medication.
When the researchers analysed factors such as the patients' body mass index, the severity of the cancer, type of chemotherapy and quality of surgery, they found that patients taking metformin were nearly four times likelier to survive, compared with those not taking the medication.
"Our study demonstrated improved survival in women with ovarian cancer that were taking metformin," said Kumar.
"The results are encouraging, but as with any retrospective study, many factors cannot be controlled for us to say if there is a direct cause and effect," Kumar said in a statement.
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"Rather, this is further human evidence for a potential beneficial effect of a commonly used drug which is relatively safe in humans. These findings should provide impetus for prospective clinical trials in ovarian cancer," Kumar added.
The results may pave the way for using metformin in large-scale randomised trials in ovarian cancer, researchers said.
Given the high mortality rate of ovarian cancer, researchers said there is a great need to develop new therapies for ovarian cancer.
"This study opens the door for using metformin in large-scale randomised trials in ovarian cancer which can ultimately lead to metformin being one option for treatment of patients with the disease," said Shridhar.
The study was published in the journal Cancer.