Doctors fix breasts with stem cells after cancer surgery

8220;This is a pretty exciting topic right now in plastic surgery,8221; said Dr Karol Gutowski of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 8220;There are people all over the country working on this.8221;

The Japanese study was reported on Saturday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The company that developed the treatment, Cytori Therapeutics, plans larger studies in Europe and Japan next year.

More than 1,00,000 women have lumps removed each year in the US. These operations, lumpectomies, often are done instead of mastectomies, which take the whole breast. But they often leave deformities because as much as a third of a woman8217;s breast may be removed.

8220;It8217;s almost a euphemism8221; to call it lumpectomy, said Dr Sydney Coleman, plastic surgeon at New York University who has consulted for Cytori and is interested in stem cell approach.