Breast tissue grown on pigs could lead to new breasts for women who undergo a mastectomy and a new stem cell technique for growing organs to order.



Scientists from the Bernard O’Brien Institute in Melbourne grew tissue from pig stem cells into fat tissue in a pig’s body.



While it’s not the first time that scientists have succeeded in growing organs and tissues, this has traditionally only been done in the laboratory, not in an actual animal.

For this reason, there is hope that the technique could soon be used to reconstruct breasts after a mastectomy, and possibly other organs soon after.



Blood vessel chamber



The achievement required a team of researchers to create a specially designed small implant to allow new blood vessels to grow inside a pig.



Blood vessels encourage the growth of tissue.



For this study, the scientists were able to grow fat tissue inside the chamber.



“We have been able to grow a breast in a pig using its own cells,” Wayne Morrison, head of the Bernard O’Brien Institute, told BBC News Online.



“We believe, therefore, that by using the chamber model we have created, we will have the potential to grow fat tissue within humans, which will assist in breast reconstruction, augmentation and contour filling,” he says.



No rejection



Growing tissue in this way could be a major advance because it would be less likely to be rejected once inserted into the body.



In addition to reconstructing breasts after cancer surgery, the technique could potentially be used for breast augmentation as well as to repair damage to tissue and skin caused by burns or other accidents, cancers in other areas of the body and even birth defects.



Morrison says that the technique could even, one day, enable people to grow their own organs.



“We may also see that the need to transplant from one person to another may be eliminated,” he says. “This development could see some types of organ transplants become obsolete in the next 10 years.”



Critics, however, have pointed out that the technique may not be workable in humans, for such reasons as the infection risk inherent in the way the chamber was placed into the pigs.



The technique was presented at the International Confederation for Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery World Congress 2003, in Sydney.
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