Volunteers fulfil an integral role across many areas of Peter Mac. Each day, patients and carers access services designed to ease their cancer journey and make their hospital stay more comfortable.

Our volunteers provide a huge range of support services.

In the first half of 2022 they fitted 86 wigs for patients experiencing hair loss, and delivered 838 product bags to inpatients. They sewed 176 breast pillows, 370 hand-crafted bags, and 503 pieces of headwear.

Volunteers manage the Peter Mac Auxiliary Group, running a shop of handcrafted items that has been raising funds for nearly 40 years, and providing items direct to patients to improve their care and experience. 

Many volunteers also contribute to the Nancy Kinsella Patients’ Library, offering a wide variety of items from books to puzzles, for the enjoyment of both inpatients and outpatients. 

Speaking to volunteers Heather, Clarel, and Astrid, it’s clear that they love their work.

“If I can make someone smile I’m a very happy woman - if I can make them laugh I’m even happier. If somebody needs something I’m happy to do it,” says Heather, who has worked as a volunteer for four years.

“It’s rewarding for me as a person, and fulfilling. What I give out I get back in spades,” she says. 

Peter Mac’s volunteers create and maintain comfortable spaces like the Wellbeing Centre or Patient Library, which have a welcoming and inviting atmosphere than a ward or treatment room.

“It’s totally different there,” Astrid says, “you make people tea and coffee and just speak with them. You soon learn how to approach people and be sensitive to their needs and how they’re feeling”.

While some of the team have been directly affected by cancer and hope to pass on the care and support they received, others are here because they want “to do something worthwhile”, as Heather puts it.

Clarel explained that the strength of the team is invaluable.

“The best part about [the team] is the environment - the support, the atmosphere of validation that you get out from being here.”

Peter Mac’s volunteer service is newly reinvigorated following the pandemic, with volunteers clearly happy to be back on-site.

Peter Mac thanks every amazing volunteer and the staff that support them for their work, care, and dedication.

Click this link to learn more about volunteering at Peter Mac.

All patients in the Phase I / II clinical trial of glofitamab had Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) and their cancer had relapsed or was no longer responding to conventional treatments, including CAR T-cell therapy.

Peter Mac treated the first patients in the world with glofitamab and was a major recruitment site for this international and multi-centre study of 155 patients, led by Associate Professor Michael Dickinson. Results of the trial have just published overnight in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Overall, and at a median follow-up a year (12.6 months) after Glofitamab treatment, 39% of the patients had a complete response. This was consistent (35% complete response rate) among 52 of these patients who had earlier received CAR T-cell therapy.

Associate Professor Dickinson said glofitamab‘s effects were also durable, as for many (78%) patients with a complete response this was ongoing for 12 months or more.

“We are greatly encouraged by these data which show a fixed course of glofitamab therapy can induce durable, complete responses for many patients who have faced disappointment from their disease not responding to multiple prior rounds of treatments, including CAR T-cell therapy,” says Associate Professor Dickinson, who is Lead of the Aggressive Lymphoma Disease Group within Clinical Haematology Department at Peter Mac and Royal Melbourne Hospital.

“Glofitamab is also exciting because it offers potential of an effective ‘off the shelf’ option for patients with hard-to-treat blood cancers and who live in parts of the world that may not have ready access to CAR T-cell therapy due to the complexity of delivering this highly tailored treatment.”

Australians with DLBCL who meet eligibility criteria may have funded access to CAR T-cell therapy – which involves collecting the patient’s T-cells, re-engineering these to fight their cancer, and infusing these back into the patient. About 40% of DLBCL patients achieve a durable remission after CAR T-cell therapy.

Glofitamab is a bispecific antibody treatment that engages the patient’s T-cells to fight their blood cancer. Patients receive a fixed course of intravenous infusions available “off-the-shelf” as opposed to CAR T-cell therapy which is uniquely prepared for each patient.

Read the paper titled “Glofitamab for Relapsed or Refractory Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma”.

Associate Professor Dickinson is also leading a Peter-Mac sponsored Australian trial of glofitamab as part of front-line treatment for DLBCL that is recruiting at sites across Australia.

Note: Associate Professor Dickinson is currently in the US presenting at the 64th ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition and so availability for follow-up interviews may be limited 

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.