Assoc Prof Chan Cheah is passionate and driven. He wants blood cancer patients in Western Australia to have the same opportunity to access new treatments as patients in other parts of Australia. He knows too well that without clinical trials a blood cancer patient will cycle through chemotherapy and radiotherapy, followed by immunotherapy and if you can’t afford to move your life to Melbourne or Sydney there are no other options available.
Through the support of the Snowdome Foundation, he has established Blood Cancer Research WA in order to participate, initiate and collaborate on clinical trials. He is ‘making hope real’ in the west for Australian blood cancer patients. The centre has employed two Fellows who are screening blood cancer patients and enrolling them on a trial in as little as 5 days. As a result, the number of patients enrolled into trials has increased by almost 100. That is an additional 100 blood cancer patients that have increased time with their loved ones, an opportunity for remission and hope for the future.
Chan has just commenced a ‘first of its kind’ global clinical trial in treatment naïve follicular lymphoma patients that he designed. Blood cancer patients’ outlook in Western Australia is certainly going from strength to strength.
