Scientists in Britain have found the mechanism cancer cells use to spread around the body -- a breakthrough they claim could stop the disease right in its tracks.

They have found that a protein called Ecadherin is essential to keeping cells stuck together and when its levels fall, other proteins move to the surface of the cells and they break away and spread, the Nature journal reported.

"Understanding how cancer cells spread is tremendously important for cancer research. It is the ability of tumours to invade other tissues and spread around the body that makes them so dangerous. The cancer just overwhelms the body.

"Potentially, our findings can be applied to the most common form of cancer, carcinoma, found in the breast, lung and gut for example, which makes up 80 to 90 per cent of all cancers," lead researcher Chris Ward said.

The researchers, who used embryonic stem cells to unlock the secret behind how cancer spreads around the body, now plan to create drugs that interfere with this process.

"These findings may enhance our ability to come up with more effective drugs."