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Generous community support is strengthening our research into oesophageal cancer, lifting hopes of improved treatments for the aggressive and deadly cancer.

The Fight for a Cure charity has donated $100,000 towards Dr Colby Stevenson’s research, on top of a $100,000 donation from the Howlett family, in memory of their son Scott who died from the cancer.

The Howlett family has welcomed the research saying it will help to raise awareness of this little-known cancer, while improving survival rates through earlier detection and treatment

Oesophageal cancer is the 11th most common cause of cancer death in Australia, accounting for over 1400 deaths each year.

Sadly, less than 25 per cent of people with this cancer survive more than five years, compared to about 70 per cent for all cancers combined.

Dr Stevenson, a surgeon and researcher, said he is incredibly grateful for the philanthropic support as it will allow him to conduct research which would otherwise be very difficult to get off the ground.

“There have been some really significant improvements for some cancers like melanoma and breast cancer in the last 10 years, but concerningly, we have not seen the same kind of improvement in outcomes for those with oesophageal cancer,” he said.

“Patients will generally undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy before surgery, with some people responding much better than others. In some cases, the patients’ disease will worsen while on treatment, and occasionally some will not survive it”.

“My research will analyse oesophageal tumours to look for genes or proteins that may inform a patient’s individual prognosis and if their tumour will respond to a particular treatment”.

“This is an important body of work which could lead to individualised treatment approaches and avoid harmful treatments for patients who are unlikely to benefit from them.”

Dr Stevenson said he is grateful for this opportunity and driven to progress this research given the current poor prognosis for people with this deadly form of cancer.

“I think this type of research could be the key to substantial improvement as it will allow us to further sub-classify oesophageal cancer so we can then develop the best treatment approach for each person.

“We are able to conduct this valuable work as result of efforts over the last 20 years to build and maintain the Kolling Institute Tumour Bank. It means we have tumour specimens from many different patients over a long period of time.”

If you would like to support this cause please contact the NORTH Foundation at info@northfoundation.org.au or call 9436 0162.

To learn more about Fight for a Cure visit fightforacure.com.au  

Our ground-breaking leukaemia research at the Kolling Institute has received an important boost with the Cancer Council NSW announcing a $450,000 grant for Associate Professor Jenny Wang and her research team.

The funds will help the development of a new therapy to greatly improve survival rates for those with acute myeloid leukaemia.

This form of blood cancer is particularly aggressive, with less than a third of patients surviving five years after diagnosis.

In many cases, the leukaemia does not respond well to chemotherapy and often returns.

Associate Professor Wang welcomed the significant funding saying it will strengthen her research targeting the protective mechanism within the leukaemia stem cells which makes them resistant to chemotherapy.

“My team has discovered a self-renewal pathway which enables leukaemia stem cells to protect themselves from chemotherapy and reproduce,” she said.

“There are currently no effective treatments to target these leukaemia-initiating cells but my team is developing a therapy to eliminate them and improve patient outcomes.

“Encouragingly, we anticipate this approach could help other cancers driven by tumour-initiating cells, such as cancers of the lung, breast, prostate, colon and brain.

“These cancers may share the same survival mechanism as the leukaemia stem cells so the approach may also effectively target them.”