Transforming care for vulval health
When Professor Gayle Fischer OAM started as a dermatologist, she made a promise to herself to sort out as many unanswered questions about vulval disease as she could before she retired. Thirty years later, she has realised her life plan.
Gayle laments the stigma and shame that people feel when they have a skin condition affecting their genitals. “Any condition on the skin can involve genital skin but when it’s the genital area – somehow it becomes much more of a problem to treat.” She is proud of her 10-year-long lichen schelorus research, which investigated the long-term outcomes of 507 women using a corticosteroid cream. This showed that regular preventative treatment could change the course of the disease and result in good clinical outcomes. It was published in the prestigious JAMA Dermatology journal 2015 and led to the creation of new Australasian guidelines on how to treat the condition. Gayle says research can be a challenging space, particularly when it comes to discoveries. “It’s hard to change people’s minds. People tend to resist change, but eventually if you are persistent, they come to embrace it,” she says. After decades of
The head of the Dermatology Department and principal paediatric dermatologist at Royal North Shore Hospital is a global authority in vulvovaginal diseases. She co-authored ‘ The Vulva: A Practical Handbook for Clinicians ,’ a seminal textbook in the field. But significantly, she is renowned for her expertise in lichen sclerosus—a distinctive skin condition on the vulva known for scarring and potential cancer risks. Her groundbreaking decade-long clinical trials into the disease have significantly impacted the field. Gayle’s interest in vulval skin problems began, when as a young consultant, she set up a practice in Penrith as there were so few dermatologists in the area. Local GPs were soon sending her patients with vulval problems. “I think they had tweaked they were skin-related and not gynaecological,” she says. Patients were presenting with vulval psoriasis and eczema, as well as lichen sclerosus, the condition for which she was to become a renowned expert. She fell into research when Professor Bryan Spurrett, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Nepean Hospital, called and asked her to collaborate He’d heard through the grapevine that she was successfully treating people using basic principles of dermatologic treatment. Together, they studied what vulval conditions led women to consult a doctor and set out to disprove the concept of HPV (human papillomavirus) vulvitis, which at the time was a devastating diagnosis for many women. “They were led to believe they had an incurable sexually transmitted condition,” she says. The pair’s work eventually demonstrated that HPV vulvitis was no more than a myth.
groundbreaking research and compassionate care, Gayle continues to run several clinical trials.
Patients with dermatological conditions suffer a reduced quality of life.
They often suffer from low self-esteem, low confidence and embarrassment. Their
conditions can impact them at school and in the workplace.
Professor Gayle Fischer
26 Tomorrow’s medicine today
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online