OCTOBER 2012 1

Treatment to combat chronic pain offers hope

After sustaining a lower back injury at work, Steve Archibald had to cope with severe chronic pain every day. However, after enrolling in a program through the Pain Management Research Institute (PMRI), a division of the Kolling Institute, Steve has been given a new lease on life. He now has the tools to manage his pain and get his life back on track.

One in five Australians will suffer chronic pain in their lifetime and up to 80 per cent of people living with chronic pain are missing out on treatment that could improve their health and quality of life. Chronic pain is classified as severe pain that occurs daily and continues for more than three months, even after the patient has healed from an injury, surgery or another condition.

Not only does chronic pain affect patients physically but it can often have much more damaging effects on their mental health due to loss of purpose and motivation. Almost a third of adults with chronic pain experience high levels of psychological distress and one in five chronic pain sufferers experience depression or other mood disorders.

With a career spanning more than 14 years as a Petty Officer Clearance Diver in the Royal Australian Navy and also serving in the Army Special Forces, Steve’s job was his life. Following his injury he was told he couldn’t resume his career.

“My chronic pain completely changed my life. Day to day I was in severe pain and I lost my job,” he said. “I had exhausted almost all avenues to relieve my pain. I succumbed to a life of high doses of pain medications and this was not the answer.”

During the three years since the injury, Steve had undergone various surgeries and treatments including opioid medications, anti-depressants and sleep medication. This had a huge affect on his mental health and he became withdrawn and removed from daily life.

After being referred to the PMRI Steve’s life started to turn around. His treatment began with the installation of a spinal cord stimulator, which he found very beneficial. The stimulator, used in conjunction with

nerve medication, allowed Steve to get his pain under control and start thinking about his life again. During this time Steve also enrolled in the ADAPT program. This intensive three week program, led by Prof Michael Nicholas, aims to reduce reliance on pain medication, help with mood and sleep disturbances and rehabilitate participants so they can return to work and resume their normal lives.

“The ADAPT program gave me the tools to manage my pain from day to day. Pain management and pain relief are two separate things. I’m not cured, however I feel I can manage the really bad days thanks to the program,” Steve said.

Since completing the ADAPT program Steve has been able to move forward with his life. His mood and motivation have improved significantly and his daily activities have increased. He’s also well on the way to changing his career path by attending university.

“My ability to concentrate for long periods of time and motivation required for university is a direct result of the treatment I received at the PMRI. There is a future for people with chronic pain,” says Steve.

For more information about the ADAPT program visit www.sydney.edu.au/medicine/pmri/patient-services/adapt/index.php

To help people like Steve please make a donation at www.kolling.com.au

KOLLING FOUNDATION | ABN 83 128 360 174 | Registered Charity Number 15752Level 12 Kolling Building, Royal North Shore Hospital, Reserve Rd, St Leonards NSW 2065Ph 1300 KOLLING (1300 565 546) | Fax 02 9926 5928 | foundation@kolling.com.au | www.kolling.com.au

Newsletter | October 2012

KOLLING CONNECTIONResearch for Better Health

Steve Archibald’s life is back on track.

Up to 80% of people living with chronic pain are missing out on treatment that could improve their health and quality of life.- National Pain Strategy, 2010

2 OCTOBER 2012

Welcome to the October issue of Kolling Connection.How do we define research and share our story? Increasing our knowledge by proving and disproving theories on what can benefit patients is our aim here at the Kolling. To share this knowledge with the community we need partners – patient ambassadors, communicative experts and celebrity ambassadors. We are so grateful to Dr John D’Arcy who has spoken

In a great example of the role local sports clubs play in our community, on Friday 20 July Greenwich Sports Club, a 76 year old club on Sydney’s lower north shore, hosted its first Kick for Kolling penalty shoot out to raise funds for the Kolling Foundation.

With online donations by teams and individuals and the proceeds from the barbeque, cake stall and canteen, more than $5,000 was raised and a great night was had by the 250 strong crowd who attended on the night. A huge thank you to the wonderful members of the Greenwich Sports Club and their families and friends for supporting medical research that can change lives.

on our behalf with all of these hats on and ensured that our research is better understood by the general community.

We are delighted to have Sheryl Taylor from Network Ten as a guest MC for the Kolling Knowledge series and we hope to encourage many others to join our team in 2013.

As we draw to the end of this year we enter a wonderful, exciting new phase with the opening of the NEW Royal North Shore Hospital. The link bridge between the Kolling building and the new hospital is symbolic and meaningful for researchers and clinicians alike, as together we aim to use our work in the lab to improve treatments for patients at the north shore’s largest teaching hospital.

We are grateful to all our supporters for your ongoing commitment and look forward to sharing more stories with you in the future.

Helen ConnealyCEO, Kolling Foundation h.connealy@kolling.com.au

From the CEO

Greenwich Sports Club Kicks for Kolling

The kids from Greenwich Sports Club having a great time Kicking for Kolling.

Kolling Foundation CEO, Helen Connealy, is presented with a cheque - a tremendous fundraising effort!

OCTOBER 2012 3

SCIENTISTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

As a doctor working in medical oncology, Dr Csilla Hasovits saw first-hand how breakthroughs in the laboratory were translated into improved patient care. As a result Dr Hasovits realised the importance of being personally involved in research so she could offer her patients the best treatments based on advances in cancer research. Dr Hasovits is now a member of the dedicated team at the Bill Walsh Cancer Research Laboratories, which are part of the Kolling Institute, and conducts research in the field of lung cancer.

Lung cancer is frequently the forgotten cancer in our community even though it remains the largest cause of cancer death in Australia, with approximately 8,000deaths every year. Many patients present with advanced disease that makes surgery impossible. New treatments and earlier diagnoses are urgently needed to improve outcomes.

In the area of lung cancer research, what project are you currently working on?My research involves identifying challenges in the treatment of our lung cancer patients, in particular tumours developing resistance to our current therapies. This involves reviewing patterns of lung cancer care in Australia to understand the journey of patients from lung cancer diagnosis to treatment and identifying areas for improvement. I’m also undertaking laboratory-based research to identify the optimal waysin which to sequence different cancer treatments in order to delay or overcome the development of resistance, with the ultimate goal of being able to apply

the insights gained in the laboratory to patient care.

How will your research impact on treatments and patient outcomes?My research is designed to address an ongoing problem in lung cancer care - tumours developing resistance to our current treatments. I’m attempting to identify the best ways in which to administer and sequence therapies in order to delay or overcome this resistance. The ultimate goal is to design more effective treatment strategies to prolong the life expectancy of our patients while minimising the side effects of treatment.

How will your research in lung cancer impact on other areas of cancer research?My research brings into focus the need to understand where improvements in our cancer treatments need to occur based on the outcomes and treatment journeysof our patients. It also highlights the importance of determining the best ways in which to use and administer currently available treatments in order to improve patient outcomes.

What do you see as the greatest advances in lung cancer research in the last 5-10 years?Lung cancer research has made rapid progress over recent years and has revolutionised the way we view and treat the condition. We continue to identify an ever-growing number of genetic changes that drive the growth of cancer cells and develop new agents that specifically target these changes. This research is increasingly enabling the individualised selection oftreatment for each patient based on the specific genetic mutations of their tumour, resulting in more effective treatment being administered with fewer side effects.

What do you see as the greatest challenges in lung cancer research in the coming years?With the increasing personalisation of lung cancer treatment based on individual patient and tumour characteristics, a major challenge is to ensure that alllung cancer patients can access this individualised treatment. This requires advances in technology to identify and characterise tumours. It also requiresongoing efforts to determine the optimal ways to deliver our currently available treatments and further research into the development of new targeted therapies.

If you’d like to support Kolling Cancer Research please visit www.kolling.com.au or phone 02 9926 4904.

“Lung cancer research has made rapid progress over recent years and has revolutionised the way we view and treat the condition.”

Dr Csilla Hasovits

4 OCTOBER 2012

We’re so grateful for your involvement, as ambassador and MC, in the 2012 series of Kolling Knowledge. What has been the highlight for you?The highlight has been the great interest by people in so many of the different issues Kolling has presented. It’s so rewarding to see the close contact of doctors and their patients and to come to understand what [patients] see as the issues. Often those issues are not what the doctors have in mind. It helps to understand why health literacy is so low in the community. As doctors, we think that people know what we are saying, when in fact there is still great confusion. Kolling Knowledge goes a long way to sorting that out.

As an experienced physician with a career spanning more than 40 years, is there anything new you’ve learnt during this series?

DR JOHN D’ARCYFamily physician, renowned broadcaster and Kolling Knowledge ambassador, Dr John D’Arcy, reflects on the Kolling Knowledge series of free health forums and talks about his very successful and longstanding career mixing medicine with media.

TEN MINUTES WITH...

OCTOBER 2012 5

The Vietnamese have a saying, “forever learning”, and that is surely the case with medicine. It’s such an ongoing situation. I remember my professor saying that if you listen to the patient they will push you closer to the answer to a health dilemma and this has been reinforced throughout these events.

Is there an area of medical research that you find particularly interesting?I’m especially interested in the management of patients who are growing older. I have learnt that 80% of the things which shorten life and disrupt it have a strong degree of preventability to them. To truly accept that and understand that small steps can lead to a healthier life is rewarding.

What health topics do you think Kolling Knowledge should address in 2013?There is no doubt that the crisis of obesity needs sorting out. People have no understanding of why their weight is on the rise and no appreciation of the genetic causes of such.

Do you remember your very first job?I was a resident at RNSH and not a very good one. I got into medicine by being very good at history and geography and science was not my forte. I must have been very good at the bedside but not so good in the scientific breakdown that often followed.

You were the first medical practitioner appointed to an Australian newsroom. How did that come about?When I was younger I had thought about a career in journalism but naturally put it aside as I studied and later practiced medicine. Nonetheless I had the idea of putting all the great information that doctors received into print so we could share it with our patients.

My association happened in 1981 after my wife and I had returned from Vietnam, PNG and a three year working spell on the Isle of Wight in the UK. I bought into an established practice at Epping which was close to Channel Seven and many of my younger patients

were producers there.One [producer] rang me and told me the Pope had been shot and asked me to talk about it on the morning news program. Within three years I was mixing and matching medical practice with both TV and radio and that’s the way it’s been since that time.

You’ve had such a successful career in Australian broadcasting and you’ve become a household name. What has been the highlight of your career in media?I’ve had the opportunity to be associated with the military and experienced with them the horrors of Rawanda, the tsunami in Sumatra and the struggles in Timor. Current affairs television presented me with opportunities to see and do things I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to experience.

What do you love most about being a family physician?What I love most is the privilege of association. This involves coming to understand how each family works, sharing with them the good things and the bad and being able to talk through options. Nothing could be more rewarding.

For a daily dose of quality health advice you can read Dr D’Arcy’s blog at www.drjohndarcy.com or keep an ear out on your local radio station for his regular programs, Health Matters and Health Check, which are broadcast across 80 regional and metropolitan radio stations around Australia.

If you’d like information about sponsoring future Kolling Knowledge events please contact Helen Connealy at h.connealy@kolling.com.au

“As doctors, we think that people know what we are saying, when in fact there is still great confusion. Kolling Knowledge goes a long way to sorting that out.”

6 OCTOBER 2012

One in five Australians suffers chronic pain. The Pain Management Research Institute (PMRI) at Royal North Shore Hospital is dedicated to improving the treatment of pain and giving hope to many Australians.

Show your support for this great cause and enjoy an unforgettable evening with legendary jazz virtuoso James Morrison and The Metropolitan Orchestra. Proceeds from ticket sales will go directly to the PMRI. When: Saturday 3 November 2012 at 7:30pmWhere: The Concourse Concert Hall, ChatswoodTickets: A Reserve tickets are being organised at the ‘group rate’ of $84.50 compared to the published Ticketek rate of $92.50.

To book your A Reserve tickets call Shaan on (02) 9929 5566 or email pmri.verco@hotmail.com

Bookings can also be made at www.trybooking.com/BSPI

Concert for a Cause with James Morrison

Half Marathon Milestone for Cancer Survivor

In September 2011 Sam Colden was diagnosed with thyroid cancer for a second time in the same year. As she embarked on immediate surgery and treatment, Sam showed her true strength by successfully beating the cancer again, with the assistance of Kolling clinicians.

During her recovery, Sam focused her energy on exercise and healthy eating, which became a genuine passion of hers. Profoundly affected by her cancer battle, Sam decided to run the half marathon (21km) in the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival to raise much needed funds for research into this disease.

“I don’t want to think about where I would be without Kolling’s hard work and intensive research. Now it’s time for me to give back to a team of dedicated professionals who have helped me, and most importantly, have the potential to help thousands of others.”

Sam completed the run in 2 hours, 3 minutes and 6 seconds and raised more than $1,800 for the Kolling Foundation, which will go towards funding life changing medical research.

“A few years ago, I couldn’t run to catch a bus,” Sam said. “Today I think how lucky I am to be fit and well enough to [run] after two cancers, two surgeries and a long road to recovery all in one year.”

Sam also hosts a blog, appropriately titled ‘The Annoyed Thyroid’ (www.theannoyedthyroid.com) providing readers with delicious recipes, her workout routine and stories about her life post-cancer, giving hope to others.

Sam’s strength and determination is an inspiration, “Today I redefine my impossible. And I get a medal for it!” she said after making it across the finish line.

An astonishing entertainer and true legend of his craft, don’t miss this truly special evening with James Morrison.

Super fit Sam about to embark on the half marathon.

OCTOBER 2012 7

Buy Art Union Tickets to Support Kolling!

The Entertainment Book is a local restaurant and activity guide

providing hundreds of 25% to 50% off and 2-for-1 offers from fine

restaurants, cafes, attractions, activities and accommodation.

The Kolling Foundation is delighted to offer Entertainment Books

online and your purchase of this great value book will ensure

that 20% of the cost of each book is donated back to research

at Kolling.

To purchase your book visit:

www.entertainmentbook.com.au/orderbooks/2091w31

You can follow Kolling’s news and events on Facebook and Twitter

www.facebook.com/KollingResearch www.twitter.com/KollingResearch

The ASX Group and Thomson Reuters Australia joined forces in 1999 to form a Charity Foundation with the objective of helping Australian-based children’s, disability and medical research charities by organising fundraising events in conjunction with the Financial Markets.

Funds are raised by holding an annual golf tournament, dinner, auction, art union and a charity sailing regatta. To date the combined funds distributed to a wide range of charities totals just under $22 million.

The 2012 ASX Thomson Reuters Charity Foundation Art Union has fantastic prizes on offer:

1st PRIZE: A luxury Lexus IS 250 Prestige Automatic valued at $70,144.

2nd PRIZE: A stunning AUTORE pearl and diamond pendant valued at $8,990.

3rd PRIZE: A three night Captain Cook Murray River Discovery Cruise for two people valued at $2,512.

Tickets are $20 each or $100 for six. Prizes will be drawn on March 13 2013.

If you’re interested in buying tickets or volunteering to help us sell tickets, please contact Sharne on 02 9926 4904 or email foundation@kolling.com.au

8 OCTOBER 2012

“thank you” TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS

Kolling Knowledge Partners

OrganisationsASX Thomson Reuters Charity FoundationErnst & YoungKing & Wood Mallesons

Donations in memoryHilton Hicks

To make a donation please visit www.kolling.com.au or fill out the form below and return to Kolling Foundation.

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For privacy reasons we are not listing names of individual major donors but thank each and every one for their great generosity in supporting our research.

Donations in celebrationDrs Keith & Eileen Ong’s 25th wedding anniversaryIsabella Jones’ christening

DKSH Australia Pty LtdEdwards Group Pty LtdGE HealthcareGenesearchHD ScientificLife TechnologiesPOCD ScientificSapphire Bioscience Pty LtdSarstedt AustraliaSigma Aldrich

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