Terminal breast cancer may be a thing of the past if latest ‘astounding’ research is anything to go by, reports the Daily Mail.
The initial research was carried out on mice – with their cancer disappearing completely for at least eight months after treatment, equal to 24 years for a woman. Current treatments extend life by just six months.
And the groundbreaking research came about by slightly tweaking an existing treatment. Mauro Ferrari, president of the Houston Methodist Research Institute, took the commonly-used cancer drug doxorubicin, and packed it into microscopic silicon discs. The silicon covering means the drug is hidden from the cancer (which would try to eject it) allowing it to “sneak into the cancer cells”.
According to the Daily Mail, Dr Ferrari says that in future, women with metastatic breast cancer could be injected with billions of the drug-filled silicon discs into their arm. He hopes to test the treatment for the first time on women next year.
“If this research bears out in humans and we see even a fraction of the survival time, we are still talking about dramatically extending life for many years,” he told the Daily Mail.
However, while the research is certainly promising, there is still a way to go before it is determined that it will work on humans.
“This study helps show that a new delivery system to release chemotherapy inside cancer cells could potentially make treatment safer and more effective,” Dr Alan Worsley, of Cancer Research UK, told the Daily Mail. “More work is needed before we can tell whether or not it will work for cancer patients.”
We are deeply hopeful that this treatment will work, and will be watching closely to see the outcome of the trials.
