Message from the ANZUP Chair

Welcome to the final edition for 2020 of UPdate, the newsletter of the Australian & New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate (ANZUP) Cancer Trials Group Ltd.

I usually fill this introduction to the newsletter with a description of everything ANZUP has done during the year. We celebrate how we have come together and we look forward to every upcoming opportunity to do it again. We thrive on this. Every year we seem to grow more, and take on more projects, and somehow continue to achieve even greater heights. 2020 has brought some unique challenges and I am proud and amazed by the way the ANZUP team and all of you have risen to them. Let me outline a few.

Cancellation of the Melbourne and Sydney Pedalthons and of our ASM could have spelled disaster for us: major reductions in revenue and profile, and more importantly the possibility of severe limitations in what we might be able to do to support our trials, our protocol development pathways, and our education and training initiatives. Instead, we have seen the amazing generosity of our sponsors and supporters: almost none of them asked for the funds to be returned, but instead looked for even more ways to support us.

Then the #YourWay campaign came seemingly out of nowhere to help us raise our profile and that of the diseases we work in and the trials we do, with amazing results you will read about in this newsletter. The ASM has been reinvented as our first virtual “mini-ASM,” which took place on 29-30 November and was a resounding success. It will never replace the sheer joy of getting together with all of you, but it is remarkable just what can be achieved by our fantastic team and by you, our members and contributors. Thank you all so much, and especially our great team headed by Marg McJannett!

We usually meet on several occasions for face to face Concept Development Workshops. That wasn’t going to happen in a year when for some of us it was not possible to go past the end of your driveway. Once again, the team came through: we worked out ways of having these meetings productively by virtual means. This has resulted in a continuing pipeline of ideas and creativity, and perhaps new ways of working together. This year we had CDWs for our Translational committee and our Quality of Life and Supportive Care committee. There are positives here that we will continue to use even after COVID-19.

We had planned early in the year to bring together senior clinicians from around the Asia Pacific region to recapitulate our 2018 meeting where we discussed the local and regional implications of the Advanced Prostate Cancer Consensus Conference. That was to take place in Singapore, which now might as well be on the moon for all our chance of getting there. No problem, sez the ANZUP team, and a virtual meeting involving people living across 140 degrees of longitude was designed and executed flawlessly. Watch for a paper coming out of that soon.

Some things just could not happen. Our TheraP trial was slated for an oral presentation at ASCO, which would have been yet another feather in our cap and a demonstration once again of just how far ANZUP has come on the world stage. ASCO was very different this year but it did not stop the TheraP data from being presented, noticed by many, and discussed by a large number of people. The momentum from that trial will continue as we move ahead with new projects in that space.

However, not even a pandemic could stop us doing the trials that needed to be done. People around the world watched in amazement as we moved ahead with the

MESSAGE FROM THE ANZUP CHAIR

large international DASL-HiCaP prostate trial, not only seeing it resourced and approved, but also opened at multiple sites in Australia and recruiting well above initial forecasts.

Oh, and it almost slipped my mind. You might remember ENZAMET? ASCO Plenary presentation in 2019? NEJM paper? Intense interest from clinicians, researchers, the community, and media? Helped get the drug registered for this indication in various places around the world? ENZAMET is now cited in US and European prostate cancer treatment guidelines. And you might have heard the announcement on 1 December that ENZAMET was the winner of the prestigious Trial of the Year award from the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA), as well as the ACTA STInG Excellence in Trial Statistics Award, and the ACTA Consumer Involvement Award. ENZAMET is the only trial ever to have won all three awards. I think we can safely say that our work has been recognised and has had true positive impact.

^ ACTA Virtual Awards

In many respects 2020 has been a horrible year, starting with the bushfires and then the ongoing horror of the COVID-19 pandemic. So far we have all been barely touched by the pandemic, compared to elsewhere in the world, but even so it has turned our lives upside down, and we mourn for those we have lost. I live in Victoria and thankfully have not been infected yet, although I know people who have, and I have spent a total of four weeks in isolation / quarantine. I have been unable to spend the time I would usually spend with the people I love. It’s awful.

And yet: good can come out of this. We were heading for disaster, especially in Victoria; we collectively and through much sacrifice managed to beat the virus back to zero, even if only temporarily, and with good prospects for future control. It does not escape me that this is because of strong science and translation into effective public health policies and practice; does that sound familiar? I’ve been fortunate enough to stay well. Masks and distancing are a nuisance, but I have not had a cold all year. Much of my work can be done productively from home. Technology is a poor substitute for seeing and holding my family, but at least we have it. Many of us have learned more about what is truly important, what should be valued, and what parts of our former lives might be best discarded. We have relearned simple joys and the beauty of living in the moment. And when I could finally see my children and my granddaughter again, the happiness was almost unbearable. Almost.

“ENZAMET is the only trial ever to have won all three awards. I think we can safely say that our work has been recognised and has had true positive impact.”

2020 has been a year characterised by uncertainty. That’s often painful or difficult for us to manage. The unexpected and unpredictable can cause us harm, but it can also jolt us out of complacency, and it can lead to creativity and to new things that might not otherwise have been possible. And joy can still be found, sometimes because we do not know the future: this time last year I did not know that 12 months later I would be meeting my new grandson for the first time.

Last year I did not expect in 2020 to be reviewing my trial patients from a clinic where I had to pass screening to enter, then had to wear a mask and faceshield, wipe down everything including the keyboard and mouse mat, allow my stethoscope to sit idle around my neck, and try to do a clinical assessment on the end of the telephone. But I do, and it works, and life goes on, and we learn, and we get better at it, and some of these things might be good to continue eventually.

So, I won’t even try to forecast 2021. I do know that we will continue to thrive as a community, and that ANZUP will continue to do great work and to make a difference to people affected by genitourinary cancers. You will read in this newsletter more about that work, and the plans we continue to make in our eternal optimism.

Please enjoy this edition of UPdate.

IAN DAVIS Chair, ANZUP