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Peter Mac’s Bendigo team has celebrated 20 years of radiotherapy at the Bendigo Radiotherapy Centre.
Since opening in 2002, the centre has provided radiotherapy consulting and treatment to over 15,000 patients. Over 1,100 patients are referred to the service each year.
The centre’s staff includes radiation therapists, radiation oncologists, physicists, radiation engineering, nursing, allied health and clerical staff, who provide treatment and other services to local patients. It is the only radiation therapy provider in the Loddon Mallee region.
Dr Claire Phillips, Director of Radiation Oncology at Peter Mac said, “As the only provider of radiation therapy in the Loddon Mallee region, your delivery of quality, caring cancer care is so important.”
“Sincerest thanks for your hard work, and congratulations on this achievement.”
Peter Mac’s agreement with Bendigo Hospital, where Bendigo Radiotherapy Centre is based, has recently been extended to 2026, with an option to further extend to 2031.
“The renewed agreement recognises the benefits of this relationship for the greater Bendigo community, and the importance of providing cancer care as close to home as possible for regional Victorians,” added Dr Phillips.
Bendigo Health Chief Executive Officer Peter Faulkner said the collaboration between the two organisations has resulted in tremendous benefits to cancer patients.
“Radiotherapy is a vital part of the integrated regional cancer centre at Bendigo Health,” Mr Faulkner said.
Responding to a need for localised radiotherapy services, Peter Mac partnered with Bendigo Health in 2002, trialling a single radiotherapy machine service, with support from the state and federal governments.
In 2007, the service added a second radiotherapy machine thanks to support from government, the local community, and fundraising via the Bendigo Radiotherapy Foundation.
In 2016, the service moved to the Cancer Centre at the new Bendigo Hospital, sharing space with Bendigo Health Medical Oncology Services.
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The Federal Government has announced Medicare funding of a new whole-body scan for patients with prostate cancer: PSMA PET/CT.
PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen) uses a radioactive molecule to detect prostate cancer cells and reveal the spread of prostate cancer. Peter Mac performed the first PSMA PET scan in Melbourne, in 2014.
“This is truly practise changing for the management of men with prostate cancer in Australia,” says Professor Michael Hofman, Director of the Prostate Cancer Theranostics and Imaging Centre of Excellence (ProsTIC) at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
“This funding provides important equitable access for patients with the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia.”
Until now, the out of pocket expenses for patients accessing these scans has been almost a thousand dollars.
The primary data in the funding application for this MBS addition came from Peter Mac’s ProPSMA study, published in The Lancet in 2020.
The award-winning randomised trial conducted compared PSMA PET/CT scans against standard CT and bone scan imaging. It ran across 10 sites, involving 300 patients.
The ProPSMA study found that PSMA PET/CT scans provide better accuracy, more definitive results, lower radiation exposure, and enables more effective management of disease.
It also included a health economics assessment, demonstrating that PSMA PET/CT is more cost effective than standard imaging.
Professor Declan Murphy, ProPSMA senior author and Director of Genito-urinary (GU) Oncology at Peter Mac says “PSMA PET/CT is a game changer, detecting disease that previous medical scanning technology failed to detect. Better detection of cancer spread is critical to direct curative treatments whilst also avoiding additional treatments that may be harmful. This is a great day for men with prostate cancer in Australia.”
Peter Mac opened ProsTIC (the Prostate Cancer and Imaging Centre of Excellence) in 2020. ProsTIC is dedicated to clinical trials, education and leadership, and discovery research in PSMA.
ProsTIC shared its expertise with the world last week, at first ProsTIC Preceptorship, hosting over 300 attendees from 29 nations.
There are currently ten active PSMA clinical trials at Peter Mac. Five new trials are opening through 2022.
**ProPSMA was funded by a clinical trials grant from the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Movember. It was supported by two co-operative groups, the Australasian Radiopharmaceutical Trials Network (ArtNET) and the ANZUP Cancer Trials Group.
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Last week, Canthera Discovery won the Cooperative Research Australia (CRA) Award for Research Commercialisation at its Innovation Awards.
Peter Mac is one of the founding members of the oncology-focused small molecule drug discovery and early development biotechnology group.
Cancer Therapeutics Cooperative Research Centre (now Canthera Discovery), was one of the great success stories of the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program.
It secured deals for ground-breaking cancer therapies with global pharma giants, to a value of close to $1.4 billion.
Translating Australian research discoveries into new cancer treatments ready for clinical development, Cancer Therapeutics CRC brought together leading medical research institutes, universities and biotechnology companies.
This funding, research, and commercial work is now being carried forward by Canthera Discovery, which is a global leader in developing new drugs with clinical potential for both cancer and non-cancer disorders.
“We want to see our innovations make the often-arduous journey from laboratory bench to the pharmacy shelf to meet unmet medical needs, not just for Australians but people all over the world,” Canthera’s Chief Scientific Officer Brendon Monahan said.
Peter Mac’s Professor Mark Dawson and Dr Laura McPherson worked with Cancer Therapeutics CRC on an international research project that identified a new way to target acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) at its source.
One Cancer Therapeutics CRC program is now in phase one clinical trials, assessing the potential to treat patients with advanced metastatic breast, prostate or lung cancer.
In October 2020, the first human trials started for the drug AMP945. Developed by Cancer Therapeutics CRC, this drug has the potential to treat pancreatic cancer.
“We are delighted that Canthera has won this award. Peter Mac is a proud founding member of the CTx CRC, and are delighted to have played a significant role in the development of AMP945,” said Ricky Johnstone, Executive Director of Cancer Research at Peter Mac.
“Canthera represents the very best in discovery-based research in Australia, integrating multiple academic and commercial partners to achieve outcomes that we believe will benefit cancer patients across the globe.”
Canthera’s other research partners are the Children’s Cancer Institute, CSIRO, Griffith University, Monash University, and WEHI.
These research partners are joined by industry partners and health organisations including Cancer Council of Victoria, Cancer Trials Australia, Clinical Genomics, Medicines Development for Global Health Limited, National Cancer Centre Singapore, Oncology One, Royal Melbourne Hospital, SYNthesis Research, Syneos Health and the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
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Oesophageal cancer affects more than 1,600 Australians each year, and men are more likely to be diagnosed with this cancer than women.
This April is Oesophageal Cancer Month, an opportunity to shine a light on this rare gastro-intestinal cancer and share what Peter Mac’s researchers are doing to improve treatments and outcomes.
Currently, the standard treatment for oesophageal cancer – a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy followed by surgery – is curative in only 10–20 per cent of patients. For many, relapse within months or a few years is common, at which time no standard treatment options are reliably effective.
Co-Head of Peter Mac’s Gastrointestinal Cancer Program, Professor Wayne Phillips and laboratory Group Leader, Associate Professor Nicholas Clemons lead a collaborative team of scientists and clinicians focused on improving outcomes for people affected by oesophageal cancer.
The “bench to bedside” approach integrates fundamental discovery research in Peter Mac’s laboratories through to clinical based studies in the hospital, and is partly funded by generous donations to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation. Below are some of the exciting research projects currently underway at Peter Mac.
Understanding gene mutations
Associate Professor Nicholas Clemons is using a sophisticated genetic tool called CRISPR to determine how different gene mutations cause cancer in the oesophagus and then identify new personalised cancer treatment options for each patient.
Origins of Barrett’s oesophagus
Cancers in the oesophagus can arise from a condition called Barrett’s oesophagus. Professor Wayne Phillips is leading a study in collaboration with Associate Professor Clemons to determine the origins of Barrett’s oesophagus, which will enable the future development of effective strategies for early intervention or prevention of oesophageal cancer.
Detecting recurrence early
In research published in the journal Annals of Surgery, Associate Professor Clemons and Professor Phillips in collaboration with Associate Professor Cuong Duong revealed how a simple blood test can be used to detect cancer recurrence before any symptoms appear. Early detection means that patients could receive additional treatment earlier. Researchers are also investigating if this same blood test could help identify when surgery could be avoided as a treatment option.
Improving surgery precision
Research led by Associate Professor Duong explores the potential of using special fluorescent dyes to guide surgery to remove stomach and oesophagus cancer. The aim of this study is to improve the precision of surgery and reduce post-operative complications, thereby improving quality of life and long term outcomes.
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Patients with recurrent tumours genetically distinct from the primary tumour may require different treatment.
More than 10 per cent of cases of recurrent ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast were new tumours occurring independently of the primary lesion and had distinct genetic alterations, according to Peter Mac research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2022 earlier this week.
"DCIS is a precancerous lesion that recurs in approximately 25 per cent of patients, and half of these recurrences are invasive cancer with potential life-threatening consequences," says postdoctoral researcher Dr Tanjina Kader who presented the work.
According to Dr Kader, it had been assumed that all recurrent tumours occurring in the same breast were directly related to the original tumour but never proven.
"Knowing how common new primary tumours are will help us determine whether or not a tumour biomarker can be used to predict the chance of a tumour in the same breast, because such a biomarker might not be effective in predicting new, unrelated tumours," she says.
In this study, Dr Kader and colleagues assembled 67 pairs of matched primary DCIS and recurrence cases to explore their genetic changes, with the goal of understanding how often a recurrence is a new tumour. The study also included a set of 32 nonrecurrent DCIS cases.
The researchers performed DNA sequencing on each pair to obtain information on mutations and changes in gene copy number. They then used multiple statistical approaches to analyse the sequencing data and perform phylogenetic analyses of the tumour samples. This type of analysis allowed them to establish whether the primary DCIS and the recurrent tumours shared cancer-driving genetic events and were therefore derived from a common ancestor cell.
"This is similar to building a family tree of the tumours based on the genetic events," Dr Kader says.
"We can estimate how distantly related the primary DCIS and recurrence pairs are to each other and to a potential original ancestor cell, and we can track how the tumour pairs have evolved over time."
The results revealed that while the majority of recurrent cases were clonal (derived from a common ancestor cell and sharing the same genetic events of the original tumour), 18 per cent of recurrent tumours were new primary lesions, unrelated to the original DCIS.
"These findings can influence how patients are managed in the clinic," Dr Kader says.
"For example, the occurrence of a new primary lesion in the same patient suggests a high-risk breast environment in which new tumours may develop over the years. Therefore, such patients would be candidates for preventative breast removal surgery even if the tumour is small, and they might be referred to genetic testing to ascertain whether they have any genetic predisposition."
The researchers also found that four chromosomal changes and mutation in the TP53 gene were detected frequently in the recurrences related to the primary lesion, but these gene variations were not common in primary DCIS cases that don't recur and those that had non-clonal (independent) recurrence.
"This particular finding from the 18 per cent of patients in our cohort who developed new, independent primary tumours raised the question of whether using these genetic biomarkers for prediction of recurrence is a good idea," Dr Kader says.
"The fact that these patients did not have one of the genetic events that are more common in recurring DCIS would suggest that their risk was low, leading to undertreatment."
Overall, Dr Kader says, the findings from this study suggest that when patients have an apparent recurrence from DCIS, the treatment decision should involve determining whether the recurrent lesion is related to the original tumour, as women who develop a second independent DCIS or cancer are more likely to have a higher risk of developing tumours again.
"Further research is needed to understand the biology of DCIS recurrence, the progression from DCIS to invasive disease, and the role played by the tumour microenvironment and the immune system," Dr Kader says.
The study was supported by the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the Cancer Council Victoria, and the Victorian Cancer Agency.
Contacts:
For more information contact the Peter Mac Communications team on 0417 123 048.
About Peter Mac
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is a world-leading cancer research, education and treatment centre and Australia's only public health service solely dedicated to caring for people affected by cancer.