Deadliest types of breast cancer have genetic similarities to ovarian cancer.

Researchers in the United States have discovered that one of the deadliest types of breast cancer has genetic similarities to ovarian cancer.

The latest findings, to be published in the journal Nature, come from an international study which mapped the DNA of cancer tumours.

The basal-like breast cancer tumour is aggressive and accounts for one in 10 women who get the disease.

Cancer Australia chief executive Professor Helen Zorbas says 14,000 women in Australia are diagnosed with breast cancer each year.

"Of these, about 10 per cent will have the characteristics of basal-like tumours and they disproportionately affect younger women.

"Therefore understanding the genetic profiles of these tumours is very significant in terms of understanding how we can treat them."

The research which uncovered the link is part of the Cancer Genome Atlas Project.

There is another similar project called the International Cancer Genome Consortium.

Australia contributes research to both.

The director of genomics and genetics at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Professor David Bowtell, says the cancers are more varied than initially thought.

"Cancers that we thought of as being homogenous are actually multiple different diseases, so breast cancer is not one disease, ovarian cancer is not one disease but actually many diseases," he said.

"So there's a sort of fragmentation that's occurring.

"What we're also finding though is that there are unexpected parallels between cancers that are from quite different parts of the body."

Tailor treatment

Professor Bowtell says it is probable in the next three years there will be a map for the most common cancers and a large number of the rare ones as well.

He says this will help specialists tailor treatment for the various cancers and hopefully extend the lives of patients.

"Targeted therapies for certain types of lung cancer, certain leukaemias, uncommon cancers.

"Gastrointestinal stromal tumours, for example, have a particular molecular defect in them that makes them very sensitive to a drug that is targeted against that molecular defect."

While there is hope treatments will be created to kill cancers entirely, Professor Bowtell says it is more likely to be about managing cancer, similar to HIV or other diseases.

"What we want for cancer is that we will obviously increase the number of cures but also that we can turn it from something that's obviously very feared to something that is actually well managed," he said.