MINICAB Trial
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Metformin to reduce pulmonary INjury and systemic Inflammation after Coronary Artery Bypass surgery? (MINICAB)
IRAS ID
1011434
Contact name
Jonathan Strickland
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN13139487
Research summary
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common condition in critically ill patients, in which the lung lining becomes damaged by white blood cells and the lungs fill with fluid, causing difficulty breathing and a need for breathing support on a ventilator. There is no cure for ARDS despite decades of research.
Metformin is a drug that is commonly used to treat diabetes. Researchers have found that metformin reduces inflammation by several different mechanisms. Excitingly, many of these mechanisms are implicated in how inflammation causes damage to the lung in ARDS. This raises the possibility that metformin might be useful in treating ARDS, and indeed in several animal models it appears to be effective. We now want to test metformin in human models of ARDS. If it is effective in these then we could progress rapidly to a clinical trial in patients who have ARDS or who are at risk of developing it. Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) experience mild lung inflammation during their surgery. We can find evidence in their blood of mild damage to the lung lining and mild inflammation, mimicking the types of changes we see in ARDS, but the inflammation in patients undergoing bypass is mild and transient. We will treat patients undergoing CABG with metformin and measure whether these markers of inflammation and lung injury are reduced in the group given metformin compared to a group who are undergoing standard care for their CABG procedure.
The information from this study will help us really understand the therapeutic potential of metformin and ensure we designed the best possible clinical trials to test it in patients with ARDS.REC name
West of Scotland REC 1
REC reference
25/WS/0169
Date of REC Opinion
17 Dec 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion