Current research using the South Australian Prostate Cancer Clinical Outcomes Collaborative (SA-PCCOC) database you support through Australian Prostate Cancer is paving the way in life-changing research. You can feel proud knowing your support will help save lives!

One of these vital projects enabled by the database is ensuring clinicians and patients are armed with the most accurate information when making decisions about the most effective treatment for prostate cancer. This critical research project has been documenting all tools currently available to specialist doctors to help predict how a patient might fare if a particular prostate cancer treatment is chosen. It’s also ensuring the best tools have been validated for use in Australia and improving on predictive tools currently in use.

Dr Jared Campbell from the Joanna Briggs Institute at the University of Adelaide played a key role in this project in 2016, undertaking the review of tools for different treatments for prostate cancer.

“There are so many tools out there for clinicians to help patients predict how they may respond to treatments, but very little guidance about which ones they should be using and very little evidence from an Australian population on the accuracy of these tools.” Dr Campbell explained.

“This research project is really essential in improving patient care for prostate cancer patients locally.”

Moving forward, Dr Andrew Vincent from the Freemasons Foundation at the University of Adelaide is currently undertaking Phase Two of this project, looking at the tools identified by Dr Campbell and using the SA-PCCOC database to assess their accuracy to determine which tools are optimal for Australian patients. According to Dr Vincent, this project is at the cutting edge of research in personalised medicine.

“We’ve got to a point now where there are tools to give patients a well-informed prognosis for prostate cancer. Now we’re slowly moving into the stage where given the patient’s prognosis, personal information and the choices of treatments available, we can say which type of outcomes patients will have from different treatments. This includes what the risks from treatments are including clinical outcomes (such as survival) and personal outcomes (such as side effects).”

This research is known as evidence based medicine and was made a reality thanks to the data available in the SA-PCCOC database, kindly supported by you through Australian Prostate Cancer. Your support is truly having an impact – thank you!

“It’s really exciting to be part of a global effort to ensure that clinical decision making is informed by the best available evidence to help guide patients,” Dr Campbell said.

“It’s also really important to have patients who are willing to be involved in the SA-PCCOC database and community members who want to support research,” Dr Vincent added.

“I know that people who have been affected by a disease are willing to do all they can to help others and supporting our research is really essential to this.”

Collaboration is key!

This study uses data from the SA-PCCOC database, supported by Australian Prostate Cancer in partnership with The Hospital Research Foundation. This research project is funded by the Movember Foundation through the Prostate Cancer Health Outcomes Research Unit, a collaboration of the University of South Australia, South Australian and Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), University of Adelaide, SA Health, Flinders University and Monash University.