Ovarian Cancer Patients' Survival Rate Increased with Metformin, Says Mayo Clinic; Drug Also Used to Treat Type 2 Diabetes

According to a study, a new way, and affordable way, to fight ovarian cancer may be available right at the local drug store.

The study, published in the journal CANCER, showed that patients with ovarian cancer who take the drug Metformin have a better survival record compared to patients who did not--a 67 percent to 47 percent comparison, the study reported.

The study was conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and researchers say they had been studying the link between the drug and its potential for cancer-fighting for several years.

"We had a pretty good idea that metformin has anti-cancer activity, because a lot of people around the world have been reporting the link between metformin intake and a protective effect against cancer for a number of years now," Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, a Mayo Clinic gynecologic oncology fellow, told FoxNews.com. "[Viji Shridhar, one of the study's co-authors,] has been conducting a lot of experiments in her lab and has published extensively in the area, so we had a lot of cell data, mice data - and then we decided to test our hypothesis in humans."

Statistics from the National Institutes of Health say that ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer among women and the deadliest form of reproductive cancer.

Of the 239 ovarian cancer patients who were tested in the Mayo Clinic study, 61 of them were taking metformin. Compared with the other 178 patients, those taking metformin had a much higher survival rate - with 67 percent of the metformin-taking patients surviving after five years, versus 47 percent of those who were not taking the medication.

According to Web Pro News, metformin comes from the French Lilac plant and is used to treat type 2 diabetes. Previous studies had suggested that the drug could have anticancer properties. 

"I think there is good rationale to support further study of metformin," in breast cancer, ovarian cancer and endometrial cancers, Dr. Robert L. Coleman, gynecological oncologist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told LiveScience.com.

While Kumar warns that the drug is not a cure for ovarian cancer, metformin could potentially be used in combination with already existing ovarian cancer treatments on order to provide patients with the best overall therapy.

"It can be very beneficial, because the best part about metformin is that it has a very, very good safety profile, and it has been in use for a long, long time," Kumar said. "It's one of the most commonly prescribed diabetes medications. We already have a lot of safety data for this medication, and it's FDA approved."