Beyond aspirin—cancer prevention with statins, metformin and bisphosphonates

Chemoprevention is a developing supplemental approach to promote cancer prevention, especially in high-risk populationsStudying commonly used drugs as candidate cancer chemopreventive agents has the advantage of usually having a low-risk profile and is associated with much clinical experienceStatins, bisphosphonates and metformin have all shown a promising degree of anticancer activity in several tumour sitesEvidence accumulated thus far is mostly mechanistic or from association studies in humans; data from randomized controlled trials are still lackingThe use of these agents for cancer chemoprevention is not yet formally indicated; however, it could be considered in high-risk populations especially if supporting pharmacogenetic markers of efficacy are available