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Hope, panic and a brain tumour · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, November fifteenth. Australia must move faster to test
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  Speaker 1: DNA driven treatments and then make genomic personalized medicine part
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  Speaker 1: of healthcare at every level. That's the plea for a
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  Speaker 1: health revolution from the nation's top scientists, doctors and patients,
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  Speaker 1: revealed today at The Australian dot com dot au. Today
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  Speaker 1: we're launching a big new frontier for our journalism, deep
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  Speaker 1: coverage of health, from the latest research breakthroughs to practical
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  Speaker 1: advice on everything from exercise to menopause, and deeply personal
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  Speaker 1: stories like the one we're about to share. One of
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  Speaker 1: the most inspiring Australians around is Richard Scolier, the cancer
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  Speaker 1: professor who's turned his own brain tumor into a real
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  Speaker 1: time experiment in survival. The Australian's senior journalist, Tanzy Harcourt
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  Speaker 1: has spent the past thirteen years living with a brain
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  Speaker 1: tumor diagnosis of her own, and today we hear how
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  Speaker 1: patients like Tansy are responding to what they're calling the
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  Speaker 1: Scholiar effect. For the people in Australia, living with brain tumors.
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  Speaker 1: This was massive news.
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  Speaker 2: Professor Richard Scolia has saved thousands from a certain death sentence,
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  Speaker 2: yet he's just been handed his own. The world's leading
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  Speaker 2: melanoma pathologist has incurable brain cancer.
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  Speaker 1: Glioblastoma is a rare and aggressive type of brain tumor
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  Speaker 1: that ravages tissue with devastating efficiency. All new cases are
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  Speaker 1: automatically classified as Grade four, with no exceptions. Richard Scolia
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  Speaker 1: was named joint Australian of the Year for twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 1: Alongside his friend and colleague, Professor Georgina Long. They've dedicated
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  Speaker 1: their careers to fighting another type of cancer, melanoma. Moving
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  Speaker 1: swiftly past the initial shock of Richard's diagnosis, the pair
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  Speaker 1: channeled their expertise in immunotherapy into a world first treatment regime,
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  Speaker 1: with Scolia as the self described guinea pig. The big
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  Speaker 1: idea was to give immunotherapy before having surgery to remove
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  Speaker 1: the tumor, something that has been shown to work with melanoma.
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  Speaker 3: And so this idea of giving immunotherapy before my tumor
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  Speaker 3: was debolked made total sense to me. So never been
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  Speaker 3: tried before with combination in minotherapy, but for me. It
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  Speaker 3: felt like the right thing to do. Give it a crack,
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  Speaker 3: see if we can make a difference in the work.
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  Speaker 3: I've learned some science that were see if this is
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  Speaker 3: something worth exploring.
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  Speaker 1: Just like a vaccine, immunotherapy uses the body's own defenses
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  Speaker 1: to destroy cancer cells. Scholia is receiving the therapy in
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  Speaker 1: conjunction with conventional cancer treatment, and so far the results
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  Speaker 1: are promising. After a year, Scholia's MRI scans show no
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  Speaker 1: recurrence of the tumor. He's speaking here with Network seven.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's amazing I'm still here, But it could
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  Speaker 3: just be luck that I'm only one patient, and some
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  Speaker 3: patients do survive for a long time in brain cancer.
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  Speaker 3: So ultimately we need a clinical trial that puts patients
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  Speaker 3: into different groups to see if this treatment actually works
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  Speaker 3: or not. Is it just a fluke that I happen
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  Speaker 3: to be alive, not related to the treatment.
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  Speaker 1: Tanzy Harcourt is a business journalist with The Australian, and
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  Speaker 1: she remembers vividly hearing the news of Richard Schollier's diagnosis.
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  Speaker 4: When was diagnosed, I had a lot of people contacting
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  Speaker 4: me just because I have a brain tumor. Myself I
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  Speaker 4: was diagnosed thirteen years ago now, and I don't have
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  Speaker 4: a glioblastoma. I have something that at the time was
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  Speaker 4: called an oligo astrocytoma. People reached out to me because
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  Speaker 4: anyone with a malignant brain tumor faces an uphill battle.
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  Speaker 4: There's been very little developments in finding a qure for
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  Speaker 4: brain tumors, and he was just so public with what
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  Speaker 4: he was trying to do, which is something different to
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  Speaker 4: what has been done in the past.
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  Speaker 1: Richard Scolia and his professional partner, Georgina Long are experts
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  Speaker 1: in melanoma and have pioneered amazing treatments for that kind
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  Speaker 1: of cancer. This was something new to them. How did
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  Speaker 1: they apply the lessons that they've learned in melanoma treatment
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  Speaker 1: to this globlastoma that Richard was facing.
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  Speaker 4: There's a couple of things that they're doing that is
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  Speaker 4: a little bit different. The first, really significant thing is
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  Speaker 4: that he was treated before his surgery. Now, the reason
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  Speaker 4: why that is unusual in brain tumors is because most people,
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  Speaker 4: if they have a brain tumor, they've got pressure on
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  Speaker 4: the brain as a result of that, and so to
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  Speaker 4: reduce the pressure they need a surgery. So the surgery
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  Speaker 4: then is how they diagnose what kind of brain tumor
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  Speaker 4: it is. But it's also taking pressure off the brain,
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  Speaker 4: which can be fatal. So in his case, he had
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  Speaker 4: a seizure when he was overseas and it wasn't putting
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  Speaker 4: so much pressure on that he needed to be operated
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  Speaker 4: on immediately. He was able to return to Australia and then,
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  Speaker 4: of course, because he's an expert in that field, they
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  Speaker 4: were able to come up with a new treatment protocol
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  Speaker 4: for him, give him that first and then have the surgery.
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  Speaker 4: That's an unusual step and that's not something that is
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  Speaker 4: currently in clinical trials in Australia, I think maybe even
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  Speaker 4: anywhere in the world.
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  Speaker 1: He's had a year of no reappearance of his globelastoma.
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  Speaker 1: That is wonderful news for Richard and his family, of course,
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  Speaker 1: but it's caused some mixed feeling among experts and also
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  Speaker 1: other people who are living with cancer. Can you talk
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about that. Why is that causing mixed feelings?
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  Speaker 4: It's causing mixed feelings because or to start with, anyone
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  Speaker 4: that's dealing with the glier blastomer has a very bleak
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  Speaker 4: future under the current treatment protocols. So the idea of
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  Speaker 4: somebody that is so highly regarded coming up with a
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  Speaker 4: new idea and then being so public about it is
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  Speaker 4: creating an incredible amount of hope in the community, which
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  Speaker 4: is understandable. And the only problem with that, of course,
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  Speaker 4: is that one year doesn't necessarily indicate anything one way
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  Speaker 4: or another. It could be that this treatment protocol is working,
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  Speaker 4: or it could be he had a really good reception,
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  Speaker 4: which means the surgery went really well. It could be
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  Speaker 4: the radiotherapy, or it might not work at all. It's
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  Speaker 4: actually just too early to tell, and he is clear
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  Speaker 4: about that in his book. He's clear about the fact
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  Speaker 4: that it's too early to tell. But every time he
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  Speaker 4: expresses hope and relief when he has a good result,
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  Speaker 4: and still there's just an outpouring of people that then
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  Speaker 4: want to do that as well for obvious reasons.
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  Speaker 1: Is there an equity issue here too, where people may feel,
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  Speaker 1: if they are suffering something similar to Richard, for example,
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  Speaker 1: that they're not getting the same opportunities that he is,
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  Speaker 1: and if they are feeling like that, is that valid.
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  Speaker 4: I think that there are a lot of people that
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  Speaker 4: are feeling like that. I've got two neuroncologists and one
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  Speaker 4: of them is also a Richard's neurooncologist, And I know
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  Speaker 4: that there's a lot of people that have been reaching
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  Speaker 4: out to their various specialists saying, we want to do
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  Speaker 4: that treatment, and they've even been reaching out to the
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  Speaker 4: Melanoma Institute of Australia, who's had to put something up
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  Speaker 4: saying we don't treat brain tumors. So I think that
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  Speaker 4: people are perhaps feeling a bit panic that they're missing out,
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  Speaker 4: But the truth is that the various professionals need to
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  Speaker 4: have time to try and create a clinical trial that
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  Speaker 4: replicates the work that Richard and Georgina Long have done.
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  Speaker 4: So they're producing a paper themselves and there are I
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  Speaker 4: think multiple processes underway at the moment where various specialists
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  Speaker 4: for neurooncology are trying to create a clinical trial, but
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  Speaker 4: you can't just kind of jump into it because obviously
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  Speaker 4: they're very risky and dangerous. And one of the issues
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  Speaker 4: with any of these things is that you can get
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  Speaker 4: pressure on the brain as a result of the drugs
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  Speaker 4: that you're taking. So it's not the same as perhaps
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  Speaker 4: if you had a cancer somewhere else in your body
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  Speaker 4: and it swelled as a result of immunotherapy that wouldn't
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  Speaker 4: necessarily have as diret consequences as if it was inside
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  Speaker 4: the confined space of your skull.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, what's the balance between fear and hope when
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  Speaker 1: a story as big as Richard's school years comes along.
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  Speaker 1: This is just a taste of The Australian's new foray
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  Speaker 1: into deep coverage of health. Check it out at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au and we'll be back after
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  Speaker 1: the break. At The Australian, Tansy works for our Business
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  Speaker 1: section as a senior journalist. She grills CEOs and CFOs
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  Speaker 1: about profits and balance sheets and corporate decision making, so
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  Speaker 1: she's very comfortable with charts and graphs, the numbers that
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  Speaker 1: tell us a bigger story that's informed the way she's
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  Speaker 1: approached cancer as a story and as a human experience.
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  Speaker 4: Look, I think I probably pestered my doctors more than
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  Speaker 4: they would like, because every time I go in for
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  Speaker 4: my six monthly scans, I always have questions. There might
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  Speaker 4: be one trial that's been tried here and something else
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  Speaker 4: that's come up there, and I always like to ask
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  Speaker 4: the statistics are pretty bad, and the treatment protocols haven't
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  Speaker 4: changed all that much either at this point in time.
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  Speaker 4: Right now, the best treatment is a really good brain surgery.
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  Speaker 4: I've had two, a really good resection it's called and radiotherapy.
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  Speaker 4: So there are chemotherapy drugs, but they generally at this
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  Speaker 4: point in time, are more helping in terms of quality
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  Speaker 4: of life rather than extending life.
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  Speaker 1: They talk about the school your effect.
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  Speaker 2: What is that?
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  Speaker 4: That's basically this idea and you alluded to it earlier
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  Speaker 4: that people want to have what he's doing because the
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  Speaker 4: work that he's done in Melanomahi and Georgina. Obviously that's
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  Speaker 4: the reason why they were the Australians of the Year.
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  Speaker 4: This year has been so exciting and everyone thinks, well,
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  Speaker 4: if he's doing it, then it must be right, and
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  Speaker 4: hopefully he will be right. But it's just too early
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  Speaker 4: to tell that yet. So I think everyone kind of
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  Speaker 4: hopes and crosses their fingers. But you can't have everyone
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  Speaker 4: jumping into what he's doing at this point in time.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So at the same time, here we have this
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  Speaker 1: beacon of hope for many people, and we also have
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  Speaker 1: frustration and maybe a bit of panic. As you said,
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  Speaker 1: how do you think ultimately we'll look back at the
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  Speaker 1: balance of those two things. Is this a moment where
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  Speaker 1: we take a big leap forward or is it a
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  Speaker 1: lot of pain for a lot of people.
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  Speaker 4: My suspicion is that it will be both. I think
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  Speaker 4: immunotherapy has so far proven to be the main area
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  Speaker 4: where there are breakthroughs in cancer treatments, So I think
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  Speaker 4: that hope is important, and I think it's pretty likely
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  Speaker 4: that he's on the right track. But whether or not
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  Speaker 4: it's going to be soon enough for him or anyone
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  Speaker 4: that's even currently diagnosed, I don't know. The other thing
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  Speaker 4: that I think is really important to draw attention to
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  Speaker 4: is just the fact that he's done such a good
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  Speaker 4: job of talking about his story that it's raising a
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  Speaker 4: w farness of brain tumors, and that in turn helps
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  Speaker 4: raise money for research into brain tumors because it's quite
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  Speaker 4: an expensive business. There is that mixture of hope and
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  Speaker 4: possibly disappointment and anxiety for everyone, but hopefully he's going
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  Speaker 4: to nail it first go well.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing your story.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Tanzy Harcourt is a senior reporter with The Australian. You
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  Speaker 1: can read her story at The Australian dot com dot
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  Speaker 1: a U. Thanks for joining us this week. On the front.
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  Speaker 1: Our team is Kristin Amyot, Tiffany Dimak, Jasper Leek, Lead,
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  Speaker 1: Sam mcglou, Joshua Burton, Stephanie Coombs and me Claire Harvey.