Precision medicine service has reviewed 200 patients
A precision medicine clinic at Prince of Wales Hospital has guided treatment decisions for more than 200 cancer patients across Australia since launching in 2023, including 22% from regional and remote areas.
The Precision Care Clinic is run by UNSW Sydney and focuses on people with rare or complex cancers, whose treating oncologists can refer cases for specialist review. The service uses genetic information about tumours to help guide treatment decisions.
Professor Natalie Taylor said the clinic was set up to improve timely access to specialist cancer expertise. “Precision oncology is evolving rapidly, and for clinicians managing complex cancer cases, it can be challenging to stay across all available treatment options and emerging evidence,” she said.
A team of specialists reviews each patient’s medical information, examines the evidence and treatment options, then sends recommendations back to the treating oncologist.
Referrals from 76 cancer centres
So far, the clinic has received referrals from more than 100 oncologists across 76 national cancer centres in all states and territories, spanning metropolitan, regional and remote areas. It has also provided one-off follow-up consultations for more than 100 patients seeking to better understand its findings.
UNSW says the clinic works closely with not-for-profit precision oncology organisation Omico to connect patients with advanced cancers to genomic testing and clinical trial opportunities. In some cases, reviews identified clinical trial options that had not been considered or were not known to clinicians, while in others they confirmed or refined existing care plans.
“In this way, the patient can continue to receive care from their treating oncologist, but with additional guidance from our clinic,” Taylor said.
The clinic operates in the public health system, but its development was supported by funding from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund. The recent federal budget included $71 million to continue Omico’s Precision Oncology Screening Platform Enabling Clinical Trials programme.
Taylor said the long-term future of services such as the precision medicine clinic would depend on how precision oncology is funded in Australia. She said this kind of care needed to be recognised and funded as part of routine publicly funded healthcare.
