CANBERRA, Jan. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Australian scientists have made a breakthrough that could lead to new drugs or therapies to treat breast cancer by discovering rare stem cells.
The discovery was made after researchers from Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, induced female mice to grow new mammary glands from stem cells.
ABC radio quoted Researcher Mark Shakleton as saying that the discovery means treatments can be designed to better target dangerous cancer stem cells that can not be treated with current methods.
"Although many people respond quite well to treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, unfortunately a significant proportion of people relapse with their disease at a time subsequent to that," he said.
"And it may be (that) treatment such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy don't actually target those cells within a mass of cancer."
Shakleton said many cancer victims may be relapsing because chemotherapy and radiotherapy are not attacking rogue cancer stem cells.
However, he said the discovery could take 10 to 20 years to come to fruition.
"One of the most recent advances in the treatment of breast cancer has been the development of a treatment called hercepton, and that's only really started to come into clinical use over the last few years or so," he said.
"The original discovery of the molecule which hercepton targetswas actually made back in the 1980s so you can see that these discoveries do take time to develop," he said. Enditem
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