A message from the CEO, Margaret McJannett
What a year it has been. With all the challenges put before us, our number one priority has remained to conduct high quality clinical trials research to generate evidence and improve treatments and outcomes for patients and their families affected by below the belt (prostate, bladder, kidney, penile and testicular) cancers. This time last year we were planning and looking forward to another year of hosting our pipeline of innovative concept development workshops and meetings; developing and conducting our clinical trials; and rolling out our key fundraising events, the Below the Belt Pedalthons. We had a plan, AND then came COVID. We had to fine tune our operations in order to maintain productivity, while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of patients, research participants and our health care professionals and staff involved in patient care and research remained paramount. Despite all this I am delighted to say that all of those activities did happen. Some required a total restructure, many required additional technology and endless Zoom meetings but thanks to the dedication and commitment of our ANZUP members, now 1800, we opened several exciting new trials and all our other existing trials continued despite temporary suspensions. We are also very excited to announce and celebrate another major success for our ENZAMET trial. The ENZAMET trial has been awarded the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA) Trial of the Year Award, the STInG Excellence in Trial Statistics Award and the ACTA Consumer Involvement Awards. A hat trick in clinical trials!! ACTA is the national peak body supporting and representing networks of clinician researchers conducting investigator-initiated clinical trials within
the Australian healthcare system. The awards are designed to celebrate Australia’s world-leading clinical trials expertise and promote the role, importance and value of clinical trials in Australia. Being awarded all 3 categories is an incredible achievement but so too are the results of the ENZAMET trial. The results published in the New England Journal of Medicine are already impacting on global practice. This trial demonstrated a 33% improvement in overall survival and a 60% improvement in progression-free survival for men with metastatic hormone sensitive prostate cancer who received enzalutamide. These awards highlight that clinical trials are the most effective way of determining which treatments, alone or in combination, will provide the greatest survival benefit to the patient with the least adverse outcomes. We acknowledge and thank the 1125 patients for their participation, the principal investigators, coinvestigators, trials coordinators, nurses and data managers at the 83 cancer centres in Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom for their dedication and enthusiasm. We thank Astellas for their financial support and study drug. Earlier this year we launched our latest theranostic trial ENZA-p. This randomised phase 2 trial aims to compare the effectiveness of enzalutamide in combination with Lutetium-177 PSMA, versus enzalutamide alone, for the treatment of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer remains the commonest cancer and the second commonest cause of cancer related death in Australian men. Lutetium-177 PSMA (Lu-PSMA for short) is a new treatment in advanced prostate cancer. Lu-PSMA is a radioactive molecule that attaches to the surface of prostate cancer cells throughout the body.
A LITTLE BELOW THE BELT 7
