Promising clinical practices of metformin in women with PCOS and early-stage endometrial cancer

Ruijin Shao; Xin Li; Håkan Billig

doi:10.1016/j.bbacli.2014.07.001

Promising clinical practices of metformin in women with PCOS and early-stage endometrial cancer

BBA Clin. 2014 Jul 25:2:7-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bbacli.2014.07.001. eCollection 2014 Dec.

Authors

Ruijin Shao¹, Xin Li², Håkan Billig¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physiology/Endocrinology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, The Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden.
² Department of Physiology/Endocrinology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, The Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden ; Department of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai 200011, China.

Abstract

Young women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have a high risk of developing endometrial cancer (EC). There is an urgent need for non-surgical prevention and treatment strategies for these patients who fail to respond to progesterone treatment and wish to preserve their fertility. Recently, we have reported that the combined treatment with metformin and progesterone-based oral contraceptives has successfully reversed the early-stage EC into normal endometria in addition to improvement of insulin resistance in women with PCOS. More importantly, one of these treated women has successfully delivered a healthy newborn baby. However, before such treatment can be recommended to the clinical practice, the molecular basis of metformin in the endometrium under physiological and pathological conditions must be elucidated.

Keywords: Endometrial carcinoma; Fertility; Metformin; PCOS.