Diabetes drug ‘can help to combat lung cancer’

A drug commonly prescribed for the treatment of diabetes has been shown to offer potential benefits in the treatment of lung cancer.

Scientists from McMaster University in Canada have discovered that the compound metformin is able to slow down the growth of lung cancer cells and render them more susceptible to radiotherapy.

It appears to function by enhancing damage-detection signals sent within cancer cells in response to radiotherapy in a way that stops them from creating new proteins for growth, thus ultimately encouraging them to die.

This is an important discovery as lung cancer remains one of the most difficult forms of the disease to treat, with less than ten percent of patients surviving the condition for at least five years.

Dr Kat Arney, science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "We urgently need new and better ways of treating lung cancer and this research takes us a step towards making radiotherapy a more potent treatment."

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the UK, with more than 38,000 people being diagnosed with the disease each year.