14 DAY TRIAL // Breasts represent femininity. Having small breasts can turn into an obsession for many women. You can imagine what losing them means for a woman! And this is exactly what happens in many cases of breast cancer.
Many doctors have tried to take fat from other body parts (breasts are made mainly of fatty tissue) to build up breasts, but such reconstructions often fail as the fat is just reabsorbed. Now, the stem cell technology, in which scientists seem to put their hopes for treating anything, comes to tackle this field, too. At least in the case of the breast cancer patients.
Cytori Therapeutics is intensively working on applying fat tissue-derived cells and its Celution System in the reconstruction of breast tissue lost because of tumor resection in breast cancer patients; the application in breast reconstruction could be available to cancer patients in Europe in 2009.
Because of the high rate at which women with breast cancer experience mastectomies (breast resection), this therapy could improve the quality of life for millions (theoretically, as the therapy costs a few thousand dollars per cartridge of purified stem cells).
Moreover, Cytori Therapeurics also is planning to employ the stem cells obtained from adipose (fatty) tissue to treat heart disease. Adipose-derived regenerative cells may be just the right thing for a method to treat heart attacks, an acute condition, and coronary artery disease, a chronic condition.
Acute and chronic heart conditions are provoked by the same issue: destruction of heart muscle cells linked to a shortage in blood supply due to artery blockages. After a heart attack, a large portion of heart muscle surrounding the infarct area is still alive but at high risk of dying. This is the perfusion defect and the main target of Cytori's investigational regenerative cell therapy.
Preclinical information shows that adipose-derived regenerative cells revigorate heart function through several cellular mechanisms that decrease the size of the perfusion defect. The technology is based on adult stem cells, obtained from a patient's own body, which is a huge bonus.