Scientists have shown that bacteria can grow faster in a petri dish than they do in a human breast.
They found that a strain of Staphylococcus aureus that is found in human breast tissue, called staphylococcidiosis, can be grown more rapidly than any other bacteria.
Staph infections have caused a rise in breast cancer deaths and in cases of infection in women.
A study published in the American Journal of Medical Microbiology found that Staph.
aureae strains can grow in a dish up to 80 times faster than bacteria in a patient’s own breast tissue.
This is the first time researchers have shown the exact speed at which bacteria can multiply in a breast sample.
“We found that the growth rates are much higher than we expected,” said Dr. Christopher Smith, the study’s lead author.
Stem cell therapy, a treatment that targets the growth of healthy tissue, is being developed by a few companies around the world.
The study involved 12 human breast cancer patients with no history of infection and nine breast cancer survivors.
The women were given a placebo, which contained a cocktail of antibiotics to suppress the growth in their breast tissue for at least 12 weeks.
After the first six weeks, they were treated with a combination of steroids and antibiotics to prevent further infection.
After 12 weeks, the researchers measured the levels of the cells from the breast tissue samples.
The bacteria that were growing faster were Staph, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella and Staph-associated viruses.
“They all show the same growth rates,” said Smith.
“The growth rates in our study are about two to three times that of other breast cancer cells we have seen.”
The research team has not yet found a way to stop the growth, so they don’t know if the same process could be used to stop Staph cells from growing.
However, the results of this study have shown for the first of its kind, there is a clear difference in the growth rate of staph and other human breast cancers.
“This is the highest growth rate we have ever seen,” said study co-author Dr. David S. Bochenek, director of the division of infectious diseases at Harvard Medical School.
“And it’s very, very similar to the rate that we see with human breast cells in our culture.”
The researchers plan to continue testing the cells in future studies.
The team hopes to eventually develop a drug that could prevent the growth and spread of St. auralis from human breast patients.
“It’s a real possibility that a pill could prevent these infections,” said Bochenk.
He added that it would take about 10 years to develop the drug.
“But if we could get it to a clinical trial within that timeframe, then it would be very effective,” said Smedley Butler, a breast cancer survivor.
“I’ve seen so many positive outcomes with this pill and I’m not going to stop using it.”
