Hope for Breast Cancer Cure

A new study holds hope that breast cancer treatment could be far more tailored in future with the discovery that tumours can be classified into 10 specific types.

Researchers analysed 2000 tumour samples from women which they say will lead to more tailored breast cancer treatments.

Cancer is one of the main causes of death in Australia, the most common types being skin, (melanoma) prostate, breast, bowel and lung. An article in The Advertiser’s Education Now lift-out states that current methods of fighting many cancers are “somewhat inadequate in identifying the first symptoms of cancer”.

A key to unravelling the unknown causes of cancer is to understand the cells in which cancer begins. This can then lead to early diagnosis, effective treatment of the disease, and most important prevention.

Although the exact origin of cancer is unknown, researchers believe cancer stem cells are involved in triggering the disease. These cancer stem cells may originate from mutated normal stem cells or from more mature cells that regress to a stem-like state.

Recently, much research has been devoted to defining the exact cell of origin for specific cancers. This will be the first step towards many cancer cures, the experts believe. However, so much work is still required and much money still needs to be raised to enable researchers to continue their valuable work, which has saved so many lives to date. To prove this point, there are 11 million cancer survivors around the world.

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