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Peter Mac’s Neuroendocrine Tumour (NET) Unit has grown in number of dedicated personnel, and its Centre of Excellence status has been formally extended.
The NET unit is the leading site in the Southern Hemisphere for the treatment of these complex tumours, and it sees patients primarily from across Australia as well as New Zealand and South East Asia.
It was the first outside of Europe to be granted “Neuroendocrine Cancer Centre of Excellence” status from the European Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (ENETS), in 2018 then led by Professor Rod Hicks and Professor Michael Michael.
This involved an extensive documentation process and external audit by the ENETS, which indicated the provision of high quality multidisciplinary care for patients with NET. Following a scheduled review, the ENETS has now extended this accreditation fully for another two years.
The NET unit is currently co-chaired by Professor Michael and Associate Professor Grace Kong, and it recently appointed a NET Unit Clinical Nurse Consultant in Kate Wakelin and Centre of Excellence coordinator Wing Fai Nip.
“We are delighted to announce our re-accreditation by ENETS which has further cemented our place as the premier NET Unit in Australia and our region,” says Professor Michael, NET Unit co-chair.
“We also warmly welcome the new members of our team who will now work with our multidisciplinary network of medical oncologists, nuclear medicine team, upper GI and hepatobiliary surgeons, endocrinologists, pathologists, specialist nurses and dieticians who are all dedicated and focussed on improving outcomes for NET patients.”
Peter Mac’s Neuroendocrine Unit also leads an extensive clinical and laboratory based NET research program which is guiding new therapies for this group of rare diseases.
Neuroendocrine tumours can occur anywhere in the body but particularly the small intestine, pancreas, lungs, appendix, and rectum.
Victorian Cancer Registry data indicates there were more than 8000 Victorian patients with neuroendocrine cancers from 1982 to 2019, and the incidence is rising.
Contact
For more information or to arrange an interview, call the 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.
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Family's loss yields new understanding of rare genetic disorder
The family of a boy who died of a rare genetic disorder is grateful scientists were able to pinpoint the cause of his rapid deterioration. The discovery has already helped his baby brother, and will impact future generations.
Grayson Little had Dyskeratosis Congenita, a disorder of telomere biology. Tragically, he died at age five after two bone marrow transplants.
Seeking answers, his parents Rachel and Leighton Little joined a study led by Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Sydney and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
“Research helped us to get a diagnosis and understand a condition that no one seemed to, and it allowed us to plan to extend our family, as well as to educate the rest of our family about the risks to them,’’ Rachel says.
“It is important to us that we also help others. I don’t want anyone else to feel alone like we did.’’
The findings are published in the latest edition of the journal Blood Advances.
The research team was led by CMRI's Head of Cell Biology Unit Professor Tracy Bryan, who is a leading international expert on telomeres.
These are the protective caps at the end of a string of DNA, and Grayson's healthy parents both carry a mutation in a gene critical for telomere function.
“Each of us has two copies of the gene, and Grayson’s parents happen to carry a different mutation in one copy of the gene,’’ says Professor Bryan, “so they each have one normal copy and one copy with a mutation”.
“Both of the copies inherited by Grayson had a mutation … while his parents who each had only one faulty copy of the gene were unaffected.
“Our colleagues at Peter Mac alerted us to the presence of the two mutations in Grayson’s DNA, but because these mutations had never been seen in patients before no-one knew what effects they were having.”
Each mutation inherited by Grayson affected a different property of telomere function, and their combined impact was unexpectedly severe.
It led to bone marrow failure, and inability to make new blood cells.
“Our findings have already had an impact on the family, allowing them to have a healthy baby brother to Grayson, and the results emphasise to researchers and clinicians in this field of medicine the importance of analysing combined mutations to reveal their full effect,” Professor Bryan said.
“Of course, while this work has given the family an understanding of what caused Grayson’s illness, we are devastated that there was nothing more that could be done to save him.”
Peter Mac's Dr Piers Blombery said the findings would help other patients and families who carry these mutations, and were a step towards better treatments for the genetic disorder.
“Increasingly we are able to pinpoint the genes driving an individual patient’s illness - including cancers but also inherited genetic disorders,” says Dr Blombery who is medical lead of Peter Mac’s molecular haematology laboratory.
"Using this knowledge we can divert patients to existing treatments that may work better for them, or develop entirely new treatment approaches."
The study was a collaboration between CMRI, Peter Mac and also Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (Brisbane), and RMIT University in Melbourne.
Work was also performed by Aram Niaz and Dr Lisa Riley from the Rare Disease Functional Genomics laboratory supported by Luminesce Alliance, a joint venture between CMRI, Sydney Children’s Hospital Network, the Children’s Cancer Institute, the University of Sydney, and the University of New South Wales.
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Peter Mac’s Associate Professor Michael Dickinson has presented new data from a trial of the investigational blood cancer drug Glofitamab, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago overnight.
Associate Professor Dickinson presented results from the phase II NP30179 expansion study, in which 155 patients with relapsed or refractory Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma were followed-up more than a year (median 12.6 months) after Glofitamab treatment.
Glofitamab is a CD20xCD3 T-cell engaging bispecific antibody treatment being developed by Roche as a monotherapy, or in combination with other medicines, for a range of blood cancers.
The patients - all part of a multi-centre, international trial which included Peter Mac as a major recruitment site - had received at least two previous forms of treatment, some including CAR T-cell therapy, before Glofitamab.
The expansion study found that more than a third of the patients (39.4%) achieved a “complete response” of their disease – meaning their cancer became undetectable – while half (51.6%) had an overall response (a partial or complete response) to Glofitamab.
Associate Professor Dickinson said these effects were durable, as for most (77.6%) patients with a complete response this was ongoing at 12 months.
“I’m encouraged by these data as they signify new hope for these patients who otherwise have limited effective treatment options and have faced disappointment from their disease not responding to multiple prior rounds of treatments,” said Associate Professor Dickinson, who is Lead of the Aggressive Lymphoma Disease Group within Clinical Haematology Department at Peter Mac and Royal Melbourne Hospital.
“These Glofitamab data suggest that patients may be able to achieve durable control of their disease with a set course of treatment that they don’t have to take continuously until disease progression.”
The first-in-human trials of this investigational drug were conducted at Peter Mac, and recruitment is also underway for several further trials of Glofitamab.
One these is the Peter-Mac led COALITION trial, which combines Glofitamab with chemotherapy in younger patients with higher risk blood cancers as a front line therapy for large B-cell lymphoma.
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.
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Peter Mac proudly hosts the first ProsTIC Preceptorship this week, in partnership with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
Over 300 attendees from 29 nations have registered to attend the two day event, which is exploring the latest in research, case studies, practical applications, and the future of PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen) imaging and theranostics.
Theranostic treatment for prostate cancer involves targeting a prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) on cancer cells. This is done by first using a radioactive molecule to reveal the cancer’s spread via a scan. A similar radioactive molecule is then used to kill cancer cells.
Peter Mac has been pioneering in this space for almost a decade.
Experts from Peter Mac’s world-leading Prostate Theranostics Imaging Centre of Excellence (ProsTIC) are leading sessions, joined by multidisciplinary colleagues from Australia and around the world.
International speakers include Professor Thomas Hope (US), Professor Sillke Gillessen (Switzerland), and Professor Veeru Kasivisvanathan (UK).
The Preceptorship supports the ProsTIC program’s goal of delivering up to date education for doctors, scientists, patients and the community.
It will conclude on Saturday afternoon with a free consumer-focused education session. Consumers must register here to attend.
Delivered both online and in person, the consumer session will provide an overview of PSMA theranostics, followed by the experiencers of two consumers, and an opportunity to ask the experts.
See the full ProsTIC Preceptorship 2022 program here: https://prosticpreceptorship2022.org/program/
More information on PSMA theranostics at Peter Mac is available here: www.petermac.org/research/ProsTIC/what-psma-theranostics
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Peter Mac is helping more Australians maintain control over their health care choices during Advance Care Planning Week (March 21-27).
As Australia’s only public health service dedicated to the treatment and care of people with cancer, Peter Mac is taking a leading role in helping more people plan for the future.
While a Will that plans for personal belongings is very common, fewer people have considered who will make their medical decisions if they cannot. Presently, around 30% of people become too unwell to make their own end-of-life decisions.
Research has shown that advance care planning can reduce anxiety, depression, and stress experienced by families, and that they’re more likely to be satisfied with their loved ones care.
Dr Sonia Fullerton, Peter Mac Deputy Chief Health Medical Officer, palliative medicine specialist, and ambassador for Advance Care Planning Australia says, “It’s a huge comfort for people making medical decisions to know they are respecting their loved ones values and wishes.”
Only 15% of Australians have a documented advance care directive in their health record, and the number among Australians over 65 is slightly lower, at 14%.
An advance care directive (sometimes known as a “living Will”) is a document that expresses your wishes about medical treatment, in case a time comes when you are unable to make those decisions
In Victoria, advance care planning can also involve appointing a medical treatment decision maker – also known as a medical power of attorney. This person is authorised to make treatment decisions if the unwell person loses capacity to make them themselves.
"Advance care planning allows families and carers to feel more confident in making decisions about medical treatment, because they know what the unwell person would and would not want. They don’t have to guess what the person’s preferences would be”, Dr Fullerton says.
Ms Linda Nolte, Advance Care Planning Australia Program Director, emphasises, “Giving people the best cancer care involves understanding what they value most, and what they would choose if their time was limited.”
Dr Fullerton adds that advance care planning is not just for the elderly to consider, “Medical emergencies are unpredictable. As we have seen during the pandemic, sometimes younger people become so unwell that they cannot voice their own preferences for treatment.”
“While these conversations can be difficult, they really do make a difference.”
National Advance Care Planning Week is the time to have conversations that matter and document your values and preferences. Make your future health care your choice, by letting those closest to you know your preferences.
For more information see www.petermac.org/acp and www.advancecareplanning.org.au