US researchers said Monday they have discovered how to keep tumor cells alive in a lab, generating buzz in the scientific community about a potential breakthrough that could transform cancer treatment.
Until now, scientists have been unable to make cancer cells thrive for very long, or in a condition that resembles the way they act in the body. Doctors diagnose and recommend treatment largely based on biopsied tissue that is frozen or set in wax.
The advance has sparked new hope that someday doctors may be able to test a host of cancer-killing drugs on a person’s own tumor cells in the lab, before returning to the patient with a therapy that is a proven to be a good match.
“This would really be the ultimate in personalized medicine,” said lead author Richard Schlegel, chairman of the department of pathology at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“The therapies would be exactly from their tissues. We would get normal tissue and tumor tissue from a particular patient and specifically match up their therapies,” he told AFP.
“We are really excited about the possibilities of testing we can do with this.”
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