$19.3 million for rare cancer and rare disease research

L-R: Prof Andrew Spencer (ACBD), A/Prof Trisha Peel (Infectious

Diseases) and Adj.A/Prof Charles Pilgrim (Surgery) in CCS

have won MRFF grants.

Researchers in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences will receive $19,324,213 under the 2021 Rare Cancers, Rare Diseases and Unmet Need (RCRDUN) grant opportunity.

Congratulations to the three researchers from Central Clinical School who received MRFF funding. See detail below.

The grants have been awarded by the Australian Government from a total pool of $63 million (see media release). Monash successes include projects focused on pancreatic cancer, antibiotic therapy and Ewing Sarcoma (ES), a rare and aggressive cancer arising from bone and soft tissue. 

Deputy Dean Research, Professor James Whisstock said this latest MRFF funding recognises the breadth, quality and significance of the Faculty’s research in the area of rare diseases. “We congratulate our successful researchers and wish them the very best of success in conducting their projects. We anticipate that the results of these MRFF funded projects will make a positive change to patients around the world,” Professor Whisstock said. Read the faculty story.

SCANPatient: Synoptic reporting of CT scans assessing cancer of the pancreas - $2,970,301.10

CIA: Adj. A/Professor Charles Pilgrim (Department of Surgery)

There are approximately 4,000 people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (PC) annually in Australia. People with PC are treated according to the extent of their disease at diagnosis. One of the problems that doctors face is adequately distinguishing patients who should receive chemotherapy before surgery versus surgery alone. In this randomised controlled trial, researchers will test whether a structured radiology report can improve the accuracy of reporting of CT scans in PC to optimise care.

Duration of Cardiac Antimicrobial Prophylaxis Outcomes Study (CALIPSO): multicentre, adaptive, double-blind, three-arm, placebo-controlled, non-inferiority trial examining antimicrobial prophylaxis duration in cardiac surgery - $7,979,999.10

CIA: A/Prof Trisha Peel (Department of Infectious Diseases)

Infections following heart surgery lead to significant patient suffering and healthcare costs. The administration of antibiotics at the time of surgery is an important strategy to prevent infections. However, we do not know if there is an additional benefit with giving these antibiotics in the postoperative period or whether it will lead to patient harm, such as the emergence of drug-resistant infections. CALIPSO is an innovative, adaptive trial conducted by researchers at Monash and Alfred Health, examining the optimal duration of antibiotic therapy to prevent infections in 9000 patients undergoing heart surgery.

More efficient delivery of high-cost standard-of-care therapies in relapsed multiple myeloma using real-time feedback of patient-reported outcome measures: the MY-PROMPT-2 trial - $1,678,493

CIA: Prof Andrew Spencer (Australian Centre for Blood Diseases)

Treatment of multiple myeloma (MM) is now very complex and costly. However, survival benefits achieved with new therapies in clinical trials are not being seen in clinical practice, in part because many MM patients stop therapy early, often due to side-effects. We hypothesise that if treating clinicians are made aware of emerging patient symptoms, thus informing timely intervention, duration on therapy can be optimised, enhancing treatment effectiveness and making more efficient use of these high-cost therapies. Routine use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), including feedback to treating clinicians, has been shown to improve outcomes in non-haematological cancer populations, but has not been evaluated in MM care.

We showed in the pilot MY-PROMPT randomised controlled trial, that real-time feedback of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in MM is feasible and acceptable to patients and clinicians. The  MY-PROMPT-2 trial will build on this experience by testing whether real-time feedback of PROMs to clinicians improves event-free survival (time from randomisation to permanent discontinuation of treatment regimen) in patients with relapsed MM receiving PBS-funded standard of care (SoC), compared to SoC alone.