Latest news with #PeterMacCallumCancerCentre
The Age
07-06-2025
- Health
- The Age
Out of the ashes, a new treatment for a hidden cancer
Keratinocytes, like all healthy cells, carefully follow the instructions coded into your DNA. But when DNA is damaged, most-often through the photons in sunlight smashing into it, the instructions can be garbled. These new instructions can cause the cell to start dividing uncontrollably, eventually forming a cancerous tumour. Loading CSCCs typically appear on the most sun-exposed parts of our skin – the hands, the neck, the scalp or ears – as a firm bump or scaly sore. Bailey recalls 'a scabby sort of thing on my head'. As soon as his doctor saw it, he cut it out. Surgical excision, and sometimes additional radiation therapy, is the typical treatment for CSCC. In more than 90 per cent of cases, simple treatment is entirely curative. 'You cut them out, you send it off, you stitch it up, and they are cured,' says McCormack. But occasionally, the cancer has spread before it is spotted. Of every 100 cases, one to three people will die, as the cancer grows back in their lungs or livers or bones. Deaths from non-melanoma skin cancers have almost doubled in Australia in the past 20 years; globally, CSCC causes more deaths than melanoma does, despite its lack of name-recognition. About 70 per cent of us will get a non-melanoma skin cancer in our lives – hence the high number of deaths, even though the disease itself has a relatively low mortality rate. 'It's so common, people tend to trivialise it a bit,' says the University of the Sunshine Coast's Associate Professor Andrew Dettrick, who has published papers on CSCC. 'Five per cent does not sound like a lot, but it is when you times it by 200,000 people.' A new standard of treatment for an invisible disease If a doctor cuts out the tumour, and then uses beams of radiation to kill any cells they cannot reach, why does cancer sometimes come back? 'They have got microscopic disease left, either in the area that's been treated, or it has already spread. And we don't have any way of knowing that,' says Professor Danny Rischin, head of research for head and neck cancer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The focus of Rischin's career has been on stopping that cancer coming back. In 2018, he co-authored a study testing whether Carboplatin, a chemotherapy drug, could prevent relapse. Loading Like many experiments, it did not work. The drug did not improve survival. But scientists often learn more from failure than success. Rischin's team were able to isolate a subgroup of CSCC patients within the trial who had certain features that put them at a dramatically higher rate of cancer recurrence. 'They were in need of better treatment,' he says. For this group, Rischin's team turned to one of the medicines that has revolutionised cancer treatment in the past decade: checkpoint inhibitors. Our immune system needs to run certain checks to ensure it is attacking an enemy, not one of our own cells. Cancer often takes advantage of this, generating its own codes to pass the checks. Using genetically modified antibodies, scientists in the past two decades have learned to block our own immune system's checkpoints. 'It unmasks the cancer cell, so your immune system can see it again,' says Dettrick. Perhaps a souped-up immune system could ferret out the microscopic cancers the surgeons could not? In a study sponsored by the therapy's manufacturer, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Rischin's team randomised 415 patients, who had been treated for CSCC but had a risk of recurrence, between immunotherapy and a placebo: 87 per cent of patients on the therapy were still disease-free after 24 months, compared to 64 per cent on the placebo. About 10 per cent of patients getting the therapy had severe side effects, and one died – consistent with the normal side effects from immunotherapy.
Sydney Morning Herald
07-06-2025
- Health
- Sydney Morning Herald
Out of the ashes, a new treatment for a hidden cancer
Keratinocytes, like all healthy cells, carefully follow the instructions coded into your DNA. But when DNA is damaged, most-often through the photons in sunlight smashing into it, the instructions can be garbled. These new instructions can cause the cell to start dividing uncontrollably, eventually forming a cancerous tumour. Loading CSCCs typically appear on the most sun-exposed parts of our skin – the hands, the neck, the scalp or ears – as a firm bump or scaly sore. Bailey recalls 'a scabby sort of thing on my head'. As soon as his doctor saw it, he cut it out. Surgical excision, and sometimes additional radiation therapy, is the typical treatment for CSCC. In more than 90 per cent of cases, simple treatment is entirely curative. 'You cut them out, you send it off, you stitch it up, and they are cured,' says McCormack. But occasionally, the cancer has spread before it is spotted. Of every 100 cases, one to three people will die, as the cancer grows back in their lungs or livers or bones. Deaths from non-melanoma skin cancers have almost doubled in Australia in the past 20 years; globally, CSCC causes more deaths than melanoma does, despite its lack of name-recognition. About 70 per cent of us will get a non-melanoma skin cancer in our lives – hence the high number of deaths, even though the disease itself has a relatively low mortality rate. 'It's so common, people tend to trivialise it a bit,' says the University of the Sunshine Coast's Associate Professor Andrew Dettrick, who has published papers on CSCC. 'Five per cent does not sound like a lot, but it is when you times it by 200,000 people.' A new standard of treatment for an invisible disease If a doctor cuts out the tumour, and then uses beams of radiation to kill any cells they cannot reach, why does cancer sometimes come back? 'They have got microscopic disease left, either in the area that's been treated, or it has already spread. And we don't have any way of knowing that,' says Professor Danny Rischin, head of research for head and neck cancer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The focus of Rischin's career has been on stopping that cancer coming back. In 2018, he co-authored a study testing whether Carboplatin, a chemotherapy drug, could prevent relapse. Loading Like many experiments, it did not work. The drug did not improve survival. But scientists often learn more from failure than success. Rischin's team were able to isolate a subgroup of CSCC patients within the trial who had certain features that put them at a dramatically higher rate of cancer recurrence. 'They were in need of better treatment,' he says. For this group, Rischin's team turned to one of the medicines that has revolutionised cancer treatment in the past decade: checkpoint inhibitors. Our immune system needs to run certain checks to ensure it is attacking an enemy, not one of our own cells. Cancer often takes advantage of this, generating its own codes to pass the checks. Using genetically modified antibodies, scientists in the past two decades have learned to block our own immune system's checkpoints. 'It unmasks the cancer cell, so your immune system can see it again,' says Dettrick. Perhaps a souped-up immune system could ferret out the microscopic cancers the surgeons could not? In a study sponsored by the therapy's manufacturer, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Rischin's team randomised 415 patients, who had been treated for CSCC but had a risk of recurrence, between immunotherapy and a placebo: 87 per cent of patients on the therapy were still disease-free after 24 months, compared to 64 per cent on the placebo. About 10 per cent of patients getting the therapy had severe side effects, and one died – consistent with the normal side effects from immunotherapy.
Irish Examiner
23-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Examiner
Working Life: Radiation oncology is like virtual surgery, where you deliver targeted treatment
Professor Gerry Hanna, Marie Curie chair of clinical oncology at TCD, and vice clinical lead, Cancer Trials Ireland 'I'm originally from Newcastle, Co Down. I completed my training in hospitals in Belfast and Amsterdam, and took up a consultant post in Belfast. I was then appointed as director of radiation oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia's largest cancer centre. All my family — my wife Suzie, a GP, and children Alice, Patrick and James — moved there in 2018. 'We loved Peter Mac and Australia, but missed friends and family in Ireland and came back in 2021. I love being home. It's a good opportunity to build on our cancer infrastructure and keep Ireland on the map. 'When I was a junior doctor, I was drawn to trying to turn things around for people with cancer. It's a very holistic specialty, often you are supporting patients for long periods or maybe curing them or extending their lives. I wanted to practice a form of medicine that was people-centred. 'Radiation oncology is like virtual surgery, where you deliver targeted treatment without opening people up. Prof. Gerry Hanna, Vice Clinical Lead at Cancer Trials Ireland: "The hard part of the job is when patients relapse, or when you can't offer a treatment to change the course of the disease in any meaningful way." Picture: Moya Nolan 'The hard part of the job is when patients relapse, or when you can't offer a treatment to change the course of the disease in any meaningful way. This can be very distressing. But overall oncology can be a very uplifting specialty to work in. 'I wear a number of hats. I'm a consultant in radiation oncology at the St Luke's radiation oncology network and the Trinity St James Cancer Institute. "I'm also vice clinical lead at Clinical Trials Ireland, an organisation that sponsors and manages Irish-led cancer trials, as well as working with international research groups and global pharma companies. 'Clinical trials are crucial for examining new treatments and for assessing their safety and efficacy. They offer patients an opportunity to try new treatments that may improve their outcomes, such as a person's survival from cancer or reducing the risk of cancer coming back. 'Most patients who take part in clinical trials do so because they know it will help patients in the future. 'Clinical trials are also really important for hospitals, as they bring higher levels of oversight, and this high quality of care creates an ethos of excellence among clinical teams.' As part of its 'Just Ask' campaign, Cancer Trials Ireland is encouraging people with cancer undergoing treatment to 'just ask' their doctors about the clinical trial options open to them. More details:
