Today, 50 women in Australia will hear the words “you have breast cancer.”
It’s a shocking figure – and a shocking message for any woman to hear. One in four Queensland women diagnosed with breast cancer will receive their treatment at Mater.
Early detection is the breast protection. Be Breast Cancer Aware.
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This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we highlight the work of our researchers in laboratories and clinical settings to find new ways to diagnose and treat breast cancer. Senior Medical Oncologist Dr Catherine Shannon from the Mater Cancer Care Centre specialises in women’s cancers, and alongside her team, offers clinical trials that provide early access to new drugs and treatment options by breast cancer patients. Hear from Dr Shannon about how offering clinical trials has helped improve survival rates:
Clinical trials are an essential component of modern healthcare. They provide evidence to evaluate the safety and efficacy of new treatments and diagnostics and offer alternative options for patients whose needs cannot be addressed under current standards of care.
Since June 2023, hospital accreditation (through the Australian Health Service Safety and Quality Accreditation Scheme) includes an assessment against a National Clinical Trials Governance Framework.
The aim of the framework is to embed clinical trials into clinical care and develop a governance structure that ensures engagement with consumers and workforces.
Dr Shannon said the national framework was designed to achieve greater access to all women to clinical trials and to enable a more robust collection of data.
“We’ve had numerous patients over the years who have been on registration studies, and the drugs used in these studies have since become standard of care,” Dr Shannon said.
"Being able to offer clinical trials means we are able to stay ahead of the game in terms of getting new drugs for patients at an earlier stage.
“For many patients, participating in a clinical trials gives them an extra option in terms of treatments. some people may not have many routine treatments available, and this opens up new classes of drugs that their cancers may respond to which they wouldn't otherwise be able to access because they're not commercially available.”
Dr Shannon and her team have been offering clinical trials for the past 21 years, building an experienced team of 10 staff.
“We’ve made big dents in survival rates and people living longer with their cancers, particularly in the breast cancer space.
“Many of our women who participate in clinical trials do it not only for themselves, to access what might be a new beneficial treatment, but also to give something back to the women that will follow them in the next generation of women with those particular cancers,” she said.
