Associate Professor Stephen Opat |
Monash University’s
Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor Stephen Opat was an invited keynote
speaker at the Leukaemia Foundation’s Annual Blood Cancer Conference last
month, presenting latest research on blood cancers.
Associate
Professor Opat spoke to more than 600 delegates about clinical and research
developments at the Monash Health Translation Precinct (MHTP), including the
Clinical Trials Centre, understanding Chronic Lymphocytic
Leukaemia (CLL) and cancer immunotherapy.
“While
outcomes of patients with B cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia have improved,
approximately 20 per cent are still destined to die from their disease within
five years of diagnosis,” said Associate Professor Opat, who is Head of
Clinical Haematology at Monash Health.
“Intense immunochemotherapy
has particularly benefitted younger patients, however older patients often do
not derive benefit as they tolerate aggressive chemotherapy poorly, and those
with relapsed disease are often resistant to chemotherapy.”
Over the
past decade there has been an explosion in more targeted therapies, although
many cause unacceptable side effects including rashes, bleeding, infections,
nausea and fatigue.
Associate
Professor Opat said there is a pressing need for effective treatments in older
CLL patients and those with adverse biological features.
“Monash
Health were major participants in the recent CLL 11 study, published in the New
England Journal of Medicine, showing the superiority of a novel type of
monoclonal antibody (Obinutizumab) over Rituximab, another monoclonal antibody.
The Monash
Haematology Clinical Research unit has been actively involved in the
development of numerous therapies for patients with blood cancer as well as the
non-malignant blood diseases.
“We currently have 21 studies open for patient recruitment,” said
Associate Professor Opat.
Highlights
of research studies at Monash include the phase I study of BGB3111 in patients
with various indolent B cell malignancies.
“This is a well-tolerated
oral therapy that appears to be highly efficacious in patients with indolent B
cell neoplasms.”
Associate
Professor Opat said the results of the study in CLL and Waldenstroms
Macroglobulinemia have just be awarded oral presentations at the American
Society of Hematology Annual meeting in December.
“Together
with the Monash University Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine,
we have established an Australasian lymphoma and related disease registry which
will enable us to recognise variations in patterns of care and
outcome, benchmark outcomes with standards, and identify factors that
influence adverse outcomes.”
Associate
Professor Opat has also just returned from Manila where he was an invited
speaker for the 4th ASEAN Federation of Hematology Congress, and delivering
lectures on chronic lymphocytic lymphoma, diffuse large B cell lymphoma and
follicular lymphoma.
No comments:
Post a Comment