Melbourne, Vic., May. 7, 2022 /Medianet/ —
MEDIA RELEASE Embargoed to 5:00AM 7 May 2022
Urgent $173 million federal funding boost needed to improve ovarian cancer treatment and survival rates for women
A vital funding injection of $173 million for a national precision medicine program is urgently needed to improve health outcomes for women and girls diagnosed with Australia’s most lethal female cancer.
Launching the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) Federal Election Ask today, CEO Lucinda Nolan declared a radical overhaul of current ovarian cancer treatment was “long overdue”.
“Ovarian cancer is the most lethal female cancer yet remains critically underfunded. Unless this changes, mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and friends will keep dying,” said Ms Nolan.
“The same ovarian cancer drugs have been used since 1992. A lack of focus on personalised treatment means many women and girls suffer needlessly.”
The OCRF, with the peak national gynaecological cancer research organisation ANZGOG and Australia’s ovarian cancer research community, has developed a $173 million National Ovarian Cancer Precision Medicine Research Program, which would ensure a coordinated and consistent approach to treating all women and girls with ovarian cancer.
Instead of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach where ovarian cancer treatment and prevention strategies are developed for the average woman, precision medicine uses the latest genetic technology to identify unique characteristics of an individual patient’s cancer and which drug is best suited to target it.
The four-year program would allow 1500 more Australian women access to molecular screening each year, of which 600-750 will be eligible for trials. This year about 1720 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
Ms Nolan said: “With current treatment plans, outcomes are extremely poor, with high recurrence rates and a five-year survival rate of just 48 per cent. There is a high degree of inequity as access to drug trials is limited, costly and extremely difficult to navigate.
“This precision medicine program could mean women would suffer less through treatment options such as chemotherapy and survival rates could improve.
“It would give women and girls diagnosed with ovarian cancer more than half a chance, and that’s the least they deserve.”
Terminally ill ovarian cancer patient and Associate Professor at UNSW Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan pleaded with federal political leaders ahead of the federal election to commit to increase research funding as a national priority: “We have so few treatment options for this terrible disease. Those we do have are ineffective for most women. Something has got to change. We have done such a good job of improving survival rates of patients with other cancers, but ovarian cancer has been left behind. The next generation of Australian women and girls diagnosed with ovarian cancer deserve better treatment options. They deserve a better chance to survive.”
The National Ovarian Cancer Precision Medicine Research Program involves a research-led model that would feed the most up-to-date knowledge directly into a collaboration between researchers, clinicians and patients, increasing treatment effectiveness and survivability rates.
The four-step program would involve:
– Molecular screening of every woman diagnosed to identify their ovarian cancer subtype and therapeutic susceptibilities
– Drug screening of a subset of patients’ tumour samples to determine which drug/s will be most effective
– Drug testing in the laboratory to analyse the drugs’ performance against individual molecular subtypes to test response
– Personalised treatment plan developed for every individual by a team of researchers and clinicians based on their test results.
ANZGOG Chair Professor Clare Scott, said: “We have tested the molecular profiling approach and know in practice it streamlines a woman’s cancer treatment. ANZGOG’s clinical trials program, OASIS, is pioneering new approaches, matching targeted new drug therapies with women in the clinic.
“As Australian clinical and scientific ovarian cancer researchers standing on a global stage, we have the track record and the plan, we just need the backing. The impact for the women of this decade and the next would be quite simply, transformative.”
The funding would provide:
– $91.5 million for molecular profiling of every woman diagnosed to identify their specific form of ovarian cancer
– $1.5 million to develop next generation precision medicine and identify which drug/s provide the best defence against specific types of ovarian cancer
– $80 million, through the Government’s Medical Research Future Fund, to boost the number of available clinical trials.
“Improvements in survival rates for women with breast cancer – now 92 percent – came from research, early detection tests, public campaigns and advocacy,” said Ms Nolan.
“Siobhan is right. Ovarian cancer funding has been left behind. But for the next Commonwealth Government, a focus and funding uplift can make it the success story of the next generation.”
This Sunday 8 May is World Ovarian Cancer Day and Witchery White Shirt Day. For every white shirt sold, Witchery donates 100% of gross proceeds to the OCRF to support vital ovarian cancer research.
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Ovarian cancer statistics o This year, about 1720 Australian women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Only 826 will still be alive in five years. o Over the next decade, around 14,000 Australian women will die from ovarian cancer. o Every eight hours a woman in Australia dies from ovarian cancer. o The five-year survival rate for breast cancer is 92 per cent, 84 per cent for uterine and 74 per cent for cervical. For ovarian cancer it is 48 per cent. o 95 per cent of advanced stage disease diagnoses relate to high grade serous ovarian carcinomas, which has a five-year survival rate of just 29 per cent. |
Media contact: Alex Eastmure, alex@truthagency.com.au, 0422 038 813