Immunotherapy Trials Initiative — Led by Bendigo Regional Cancer Centre and Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre

Immunotherapy is a cutting-edge cancer treatment that uses our immune system to fight cancer. It works by helping the immune system recognise and attack cancer cells. The initiative aims to increase regional trial participation in immunotherapy, and the knowledge of side effects across the regional workforce. We do this by providing access to immunotherapy research, especially in cancers newer to immunotherapy interventions, represents a great potential improvement in health outcomes for regional Victorians.

At its mid-way mark, some achievements of the initiative include:

- The MOST Circuit Trial met its recruitment target of 240 participants in February 2024, with regional trial sites contributing a third of total participants (n=80). The trial provided high-quality immunotherapy trials to patients with rare neuroendocrine, biliary tract, gynaecological and mismatch repair protein deficient (MSI-H) cancers.

- Progressed the OligoProgressive Treatment for ImmunOtherapy patieNts (OPTION) trial, with Bendigo Health becoming an investigator-initiated trial sponsor for the first time.

- Increased immunotherapy-based trials across the program network partner sites resulting in recruitment of 118 patients in 2023.

- Developed a network-wide immunotherapy patient alert card designed to increase patient safety for regional patients presenting at emergency departments, who may not have experience with Immunotherapy adverse events.

- Commenced work on developing a toolkit to train regional health care workers on the management of immunotherapy side-effects.