Investigating a misunderstood cancer
Associate Professor David Chan has spent the past decade researching one of the most complex and misunderstood cancers: neuroendocrine tumours or NETs.
The Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) medical oncologist and Sydney University academic is currently overseeing multiple clinical trials into the disease. “Part of the challenge with NETs is they are very different to all the other tumours,” says David. NETs are cancers that come from neuroendocrine cells, which are found throughout the body and produce hormones. These tumours can develop in many parts of the body, most commonly in the small bowel, lung and pancreas. But David has also treated NETs in the breast, ovaries, kidneys and bladder. “When we talk about breast cancer, for example, what we mean is the most common type of cell in the breast has gone wrong. But there are also neuroendocrine cells in the breast and if one of them goes wrong, then that’s a neuroendocrine tumour, which should be treated differently to a standard breast cancer.” NETs are also marked by a variability in the speed in which they grow – some grow slowly and others are very fast-growing. David says that because NETs are so misunderstood and often misdiagnosed – and surrounded by myths such as an incorrect belief that they are not deadly – there is an urgent need to study them.
“We need to advocate and raise awareness of these types of tumours,” he says.
RNSH sees the highest number of patients with NETs in NSW and, alongside Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, is recognised as one of only two internationally certified centres of excellence for neuroendocrine tumours in the Southern Hemisphere. David is currently running around 10 clinical trials, as well as many other research projects. One local trial involves patients undergoing a new method of total body PET scans at RNSH. Normally, to see NET cancer cells on a scan, a small amount of radioactive tracer is injected into the body and a scan is done after a small wait. Unfortunately, patients who live far away cannot undergo two PET scans in one day because the tracer takes too long to fade. “Our innovation is we are using the sensitivity of the total body PET scanner to give a smaller dose and scan for slightly longer. These new scanner gives us good quality images,” he says. “If we can do it on the same day, that would really decrease the time patients have away from their family, staying somewhere, the financial and emotional cost of that.”
26 Tomorrow’s medicine today
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online