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| Associate Professor Megan Wallace |
The School of Clinical Sciences
at Monash Health (SCS) congratulates the following staff who received recent academic promotions at Monash
University:
Showing posts with label Alberta Hoi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alberta Hoi. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Monday, 26 February 2018
Monday, 7 August 2017
Monday, 27 March 2017
Monday, 13 March 2017
Australian-first lupus registry and biobank to provide real world evidence of therapies
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| Dr Alberta Hoi and Professor Eric Morand |
The Australian Lupus Registry and Biobank (ALRB) is
essential to improving our understanding of systematic lupus erythematosus
(SLE) and could be a world leader, according to experts including Monash
University’s Professor Eric Morand.
Published today in the Medical Journal of Australia, the
authors said the ALRB will be a valuable resource for clinicians, scientists,
industry and government to provide real world evidence of clinical
effectiveness of existing or new therapies and management strategies in
patients with lupus.
“Lupus is a complex autoimmune disease with diverse
symptoms, which place an unacceptable level of burden on affected patients,”
said Professor Morand, Head of Rheumatology at Monash Health and Head, School of
Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University.
“Australian data on lupus are scarce, with figures
suggesting a prevalence of lupus that ranges from 19 per 100,000 in people of
European ancestry to 92 per 100,000 in Indigenous Australians, similar to other
chronic diseases such as hepatitis C.”
Professor Morand said that while survival rates have
improved in the last fifty years, it is still a sobering thought that lupus,
which typically presents in women in their twenties or thirties, confers a 1 in
10 chance of dying before the age of forty.
Despite those numbers, it wasn’t until the ALRB was
established in 2012 that fundamental data regarding age, geographic and ethnic
distribution; currently used treatments; and unmet needs of patients in
Australia was consistently collected.
Ten Australian institutions are now recruiting patients with
lupus to the ALRB across Victorian, New South Wales, South Australia and
Western Australia, with the common goal of ‘improving treatment and outcomes
for people with lupus’.
Economically, the registry also serves a vital purpose.
“In the complex Australian health care system, it is
difficult to examine the different components of health care use, so the true
economic costs for a disease such as lupus are often grossly underestimated,”
said co-author Dr Alberta Hoi, Head of the Monash Lupus Clinic and chief
investigator, Lupus and Arthritis Research Group at Monash University.
The ALRB will allow the tracking of health care uses related
to the care of lupus in Australia and will provide data for benchmarking.
”With the rising costs of health care and a limited health
budget, it is paramount that data are available to study the cost effectiveness
of various management strategies,” said Dr Hoi.
“Health care use, based on annual patient self-report of
hospitalisations, investigations and other health complications, may form the
basis to derive cost.”
Professor Morand said the ALRB information may help measure
the health consequences of different health care interventions.
Monday, 6 February 2017
Monday, 28 November 2016
CID Weekly Seminar: "Lupus Research at Monash SCS", Tuesday 29 November
Presented by Dr Alberta Hoi
Head of Lupus Clinic, Monash Medical Centre
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Medicine, Monash University
The Monash Lupus Clinic
recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary. At its inception in late 2006, it
was modelled as the first multi-disciplinary lupus clinic in Australia, and to
combine clinical activity with research. I will present our journey
in the diversification of research activities, from biomarker translational
research to the establishment of a national registry and biobank (the
Australian Lupus Registry and Biobank), as well as other clinical research
activities collaborating with local and international partners.
Dr Alberta Hoi is a rheumatologist and
translational researcher focussing on systemic lupus erythematosus and other
systemic rheumatic diseases. She currently holds positions as the Head of Lupus
Clinic at Monash Medical Centre and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of
Medicine, where she oversees patient care, education, and clinical
research initiatives in SLE.Over the years she has had significant experience in clinical and translational research, including completing a NHMRC PhD scholarship in immunology examining the pathogenetic role of the proinflammatory cytokine Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor (MIF) in systemic lupus erythematosus. She plays an active role in a number of investigator-initiated SLE studies and clinical trials.
At SCS she is the clinical lead of the Lupus & Arthritis Group, and has rolled out the national disease registry (the Australian Lupus Registry & Biobank) which is now a valuable research resource that fosters collaboration between translational scientists and clinicians. She oversees a number of research projects of her students, including the validation of a low lupus disease activity state and effects of healthcare quality on disease outcomes. Dr Alberta Hoi is the chair for the Australian Rheumatology Association SLE Interest Group (SLESIG), and co-chair for the Australian Lupus Registry & Biobank steering committee, and a steering member of the Asia-Pacific Lupus Collaboration.
A light lunch is served prior to the seminar at 11:45am in the seminar room foyer, level 2, TRF Building.
Further information, including the link to add the seminar series to your google calendar, is available from CID Weekly Seminar Series website [http://www.med.monash.edu.au/scs/medicine/cid/seminar-series.html]
Monday, 21 November 2016
Monday, 10 October 2016
Monday, 22 August 2016
Monday, 27 April 2015
Low vitamin D levels linked to lupus
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| Dr Kristy Yap |
Published earlier this month in Lupus Science &
Medicine, lead researcher Dr Kristy Yap, MBBS from the Centre for
Inflammatory Diseases in the School
of Clinical Sciences reported her findings in the first study to examine
SLE disease in the Southern Hemisphere.
SLE, also known as lupus, is a severe, incurable and debilitating multisystem
autoimmune disease. It is the most
common autoimmune disease, affecting at least 5 million people worldwide, and
is predominantly diagnosed in young women.
The longitudinal study examined the disease activity and
vitamin D levels of lupus patients who attended the Monash
Medical Centre Lupus Clinic between 2007 and 2013.
“We found a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in our
cohort,” said lead author Dr Kristy Yap.
“Significantly, over a quarter of our patients recorded low
vitamin D levels, keeping with reports from other parts of the world, including
Asia and Europe.”
Demonstrating an inverse association between vitamin D
levels and lupus disease activity, the research shows that increasing vitamin D
levels correlates with lower disease activity in lupus patients.
“Future studies
should include randomised trials which focus on the clinical effect of vitamin
D supplementation in lupus,” said Head of the Monash Lupus Clinic and chief
investigator in the Lupus and
Arthritis Research Group, Dr Alberta Hoi.
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