Ground‑breaking research at NSW Health Pathology’s anatomical pathology laboratory at Royal North Shore Hospital could transform how cancer is diagnosed and treated, using a simple blood test instead of invasive biopsies.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Pro­fes­sor Antho­ny Gill and Pro­fes­sor Nick Pavlakis, on secur­ing a $3.75 mil­lion Trans­la­tion­al Pro­gram Grant via Can­cer Insti­tute NSW to bring a less inva­sive method of diag­nos­ing and mon­i­tor­ing can­cer into every­day care.

Pro­fes­sor Gill, NSW Health Pathology’s Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist in Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy at Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal, is lead­ing the project with his col­league Pro­fes­sor Pavlakis, oncol­o­gist at RNSH and the Kolling Institute.

The research focus­es on liq­uid biop­sies, a sim­ple blood test that can detect tiny frag­ments of DNA released by can­cer cells. For some patients, this approach has the poten­tial to replace tra­di­tion­al tis­sue biop­sies and even surgery.

“The great major­i­ty of tri­als of new can­cer treat­ments around the world now include a liq­uid biop­sy com­po­nent to track the response of the tumours. It is now impor­tant to bring capa­bil­i­ty for this new test­ing to NSW,” Pro­fes­sor Gill said.

“This new tech­nol­o­gy can pick up small amounts of DNA shed by can­cer in the blood, pro­vid­ing a valu­able screen­ing tool and cru­cial infor­ma­tion to guide treatment.

“Liq­uid biop­sies are not only used in the diag­no­sis of can­cer, but to assess whether any can­cer has been left behind fol­low­ing surgery, if a can­cer has returned and if a tumour is not respond­ing to chemotherapy.

“They will inform treat­ment approach­es after surgery to deter­mine if radio­ther­a­py or chemother­a­py are also need­ed to pre­vent a can­cer return­ing. We know that if tiny frag­ments of DNA from the can­cer are still in the blood after surgery, then more treat­ment is needed.

“Liq­uid biop­sies will sup­port per­son­alised care, enabling clin­i­cians to accu­rate­ly track the effec­tive­ness of tar­get­ed treat­ments, and adjust ther­a­pies to meet indi­vid­ual needs.”

Benefits for rural patients

The research could bring sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits for patients liv­ing in region­al and rur­al areas, who are often required to trav­el long dis­tances for biopsies.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Chief Exec­u­tive Vanes­sa Janis­sen said sup­port­ing cut­ting-edge research is key to ensur­ing patients across NSW ben­e­fit from emerg­ing technologies.

“Our role is to ensure patients, no mat­ter where they live, have access to advanced diag­nos­tic ser­vices that sup­port faster diag­no­sis, bet­ter treat­ment deci­sions and improved out­comes,” she said.

“This fund­ing recog­nis­es the out­stand­ing exper­tise with­in NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and our part­ners, and our com­mit­ment to remain­ing at the fore­front of inno­va­tion in pathol­o­gy and can­cer care.”

Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal oncol­o­gist and lead­ing Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney researcher Pro­fes­sor Nick Pavlakis has wel­comed the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar fund­ing boost, say­ing liq­uid biop­sies will deliv­er wide-rang­ing benefits.

“Liq­uid biop­sies for can­cer are not just one test. It is a com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent tests,” Prof Pavlakis said.

“Some are designed as screen­ing tests, some are designed to pre­dict response to treat­ment, some are designed to mon­i­tor for recur­rence. Each dif­fer­ent type of test has a dif­fer­ent role at dif­fer­ent stages of diag­no­sis and treatment.

“A liq­uid biop­sy tumour bank is being devel­oped so that when patients with can­cer have a blood test, they will be giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to donate a small sam­ple of blood. This will help refine our test­ing, and progress cru­cial ther­a­pies for a broad range of cancers.”

(Top pho­to: Prof Nick Pavlakis and Prof Antho­ny Gill at Roy­al North Shore Hospital)

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