New research into Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) could help in understanding the growth of cancerous tumours in humans.

Dr Rodrigo Hamede said the approach used in a University of Tasmania study went beyond devils, and might help scientists understand how tumour properties influenced growth in other types of cancers, including those in humans.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically estimate tumour growth rates, in the absence of treatment in a wild population," he said.

DFTD, which is transmitted by biting, fighting and mating, has wiped out more than 80 per cent of the wild population in the past 20 years.

The research showing differences in the growth rates of fatal tumours in Tasmanian devils might also help research into fighting the disease.

Research team member Dr Scott Carver said the devils offered opportunities for wider research into tumour growth in general.

"It is very rare that you are able to measure the growth of a tumour or a cancer without it being treated," he said.

"For example, if you know of any human that gets cancer, that is immediately treated, and you don't sit back and watch it grow.

"In a wild animal like the Tasmanian devils, it is not really possible to treat them out in nature.

"It is an opportunity to start gathering some of the fundamental information on how tumours grow."

Dr Hamede said the research examined the daily growth rate and the final tumour volume in males and females affected by two genetic types of tumours, diploid and tetraploid.

He said tumour growth rates varied between diploid and tetraploid tumours, but not between males and females.

Sorry, this video has expired Devils released to trial vaccine ( Sallese Gibson )

Some devils might alter tumour growth rates

Diploid tumours have slower growth rates, but tetraploid tumours have smaller final volume.

"Several studies have recently suggested that devils are adapting to devil facial tumour disease, and becoming more tolerant to the disease," Dr Hamede said.

"This study suggests that different genetic lineages of tumours have different growth rates, and therefore [a different] impact on devils, although some devils might be capable of altering the growth rate of tumours."

Dr Carver said understanding factors that influenced the growth of devil tumours was important in developing treatments.

"It will help in understanding how [vaccines] are effective," he said.

"By understanding different characteristics of the growth of the tumours themselves, you can start to understand that if you apply treatments to devils, you see growth rates diminish or slow down.

"Then you can understand whether your treatment is causing that, or whether your treatment is actually having no effect, and it is actually the natural growth cycle of the cancer itself."

The facial tumour disease that has decimated the Tasmanian devil is a contagious cancer spread by biting. ( Supplied: Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water )

Associate Professor Menna Jones highlighted the importance of investigating natural adaptations to facial tumour disease.

"When new diseases break out, the host animals are naïve to the disease and mortality can be very high," she said.

"This was the case with DFTD, which has caused widespread decline in devil populations.

"High mortality creates very strong evolutionary selection pressure for the host animal to survive."

Dr Jones said devils could adapt by evolving to be resistant to the disease, or in their ability to tolerate the infection.

"Our studies have recently shown that devils are adapting to the cancer very rapidly, in as little as four generations or eight years," she said.

The study was carried out over a decade on a wild devil population in north-west Tasmania.