2018
News
CLIP-II study of frozen platelets funded by NHMRC
The CLIP-II team have been awarded $1.825 million by the NHMRC for the project. CLIP Chief Investigator Dr Michael Reade leads a team of experts from around Australia and New Zealand, including Drs Zoe McQuilten and Erica Wood of the Transfusion Research Unit at Monash University. |
Sharing Massive Transfusion Registry data with transfusion practitioners
The MTR now has data on over 8,000 cases of critical bleeding from 29 hospitals across all clinical contexts, including trauma, obstetrics, surgery and gastrointestinal haemorrhage. An additional 20 sites are in the process of joining. The MTR is proving valuable for both research and for clinical practice improvement and benchmarking, and data are provided to participating sites via hospital data reports, letters and presentations. Results have been presented this year at the BLOOD 2018 conference in Brisbane, the International Society of Blood Transfusion congress in Toronto, and the AABB conference in Boston, as well as through several publications. Current MTR research projects include analyses of:
If you have an idea for a project using MTR data, please get in touch with us: sphpm.mtr@monash.edu |
TRU at BLOOD 2018 conference
TRU’s exhibition booth was a great opportunity to profile the Unit’s research and hold informal discussions with delegates. Breakfast meetings for the lymphoma and myeloma registries included presentations by invited speakers as well as review of registry data and project updates, and were well attended by clinicians and industry partners. |
Dr Rosemary Sparrow awarded honorary membership of BEST Collaborative
Congratulations to Rosemary for being made an honorary member for her previous and ongoing contributions to BEST and transfusion research, and becoming the first Australian to be awarded this honour. |
TRU at AABB 2018 meeting
Prof Erica Wood and Dr Zoe McQuilten co-authored an abstract on an Australian clinical trial of cryopreserved platelets in cardiac surgery, presented in the Plenary Oral Abstract Session for the top six submitted abstracts. |
ASPREE trial published in New England Journal of Medicine
One of the publications focussed on clinically significant bleeding. Prof Erica Wood of Monash University’s Transfusion Research Unit chaired the ASPREE clinically significant bleeding panel and was one of the authors on this paper. See: McNeil JJ, et al. Effect of aspirin on cardiovascular events and bleeding in the healthy elderly. N Engl J Med. 2018 Oct 18;379(16):1509-1518. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1805819. More information is available at: aspree.org/aus |
Frailty-stratified, randomised controlled Bayesian adaptive trial of bortezomib versus lenalidomide in transplant-ineligible myeloma – the FRAIL-M study – funded by the Medical Research Future FundTRU’s Zoe McQuilten, Erica Wood, Elizabeth Moore and Cameron Wellard are investigators on the FRAIL-M study. The project will utilise the infrastructure of the Myeloma and Related Diseases Registry (MRDR) managed by Monash University’s Transfusion Research Unit. Professor Andrew Spencer (Monash University/Alfred Hospital) is Chief Investigator A on FRAIL-M and chair of the MRDR Steering Committee. Funding of $1.642 million has been awarded by the MRFF through its call for applications for “Low Survival Cancers and Diseases”. Current Australian guidelines recommend that up-front therapy for transplant-ineligible myeloma patients should be either bortezomib- or lenlidomide-based regimens, with dosing adjusted according to patient frailty. However, adapting treatment dose according to frailty assessment has not been tested in a clinical trial. FRAIL-M is a stratified randomised controlled trial to identify which competing treatment options are more appropriate in transplant-ineligible myeloma patients according to frailty status. Participants will be stratified into three groups (fit, intermediate-fit or frail) based on a standardised and validated frailty assessment, and randomised to a bortezomib- vs a lenalidomide-based regimen, with dosing adjusted according to frailty stratum. A Bayesian Optimal Phase II design will allow us to jointly monitor efficacy and toxicity, with further adjustments if individual treatment arms appear either too toxic or ineffective. The FRAIL-M investigators are Andrew Spencer, Zoe McQuilten, Hang Quach, Peter Mollee, Erica Wood, John Reynolds, Ruth Hubbard, Richard De Abreu Lourenco, Cameron Wellard, Elizabeth Moore, Madeleine King, Steve Roach and Tracy King. |
TRU congratulates Dr Nicholas Saadah who was awarded his PhD from the University of Leiden on 11 September 2018
Nic was an academic visitor to Monash during 2017, working on a range of transfusion research projects. Prof Erica Wood from the TRU was a member of the PhD defence panel for the University of Leiden. |
The Asia-Pacific Myeloma and Related Diseases Registry has opened to recruitment at Samsung Medical Center in Korea!
The registry was established in 2018 by Monash University, and in collaboration with participating pilot hospitals in Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and is affiliated with the Australian and New Zealand Myeloma and Related Diseases Registry (ANZ MRDR). The APAC MRDR aims to provide health care services and researchers an important resource for investigating the best possible treatment options for people with these conditions. The Registry will tell us about:
The Registry will also form a network of clinical experts from the Asia-Pacific region with a special interest in myeloma and related diseases. Information on the Asia-Pacific expansion of the MRDR is available at: apacmrdr.org or please contact the project team at sphpm.apacmrdr@monash.edu More information on the Australian and New Zealand MRDR and its projects is available at: mrdr.net.au |
TRU awarded $1.75m for DIAAMOND PROJECT
Aplastic anaemia is a life-threatening condition, and the only curative option, haematopoietic stem cell transplant, is not available to many patients. This study of avatrombopag (a second-generation thrombopoietin receptor agonist) in patients with treatment-naïve or relapsed/refractory aplastic anaemia, builds on promising results from recent studies with eltrombopag. The trial, using a novel Bayesian adaptive design, will be conducted using the Aplastic Anaemia Registry and is anticipated to open in early 2019. If you are interested in participating in the Aplastic Anaemia Registry, or the DIAAMOND study, please contact us at: aar@monash.edu or sphpm.diaamond@monash.edu |
CLIP-II is a phase III, multicentre blinded randomised controlled clinical non-inferiority trial of cryopreserved platelets versus conventional liquid-stored platelets for the management of post-cardiac surgical bleeding.
Dr Rosemary Sparrow and Mrs Helen Haysom provided an update on the Massive Transfusion Registry as part of the Blood Matters Transfusion Forum in November.
The Transfusion Research Unit was well represented at the recent Australian and New Zealand annual haematology and transfusion conference, 
The Transfusion Research Unit was well represented at the 
The results of the Australia-US 
The 
Erica Wood and Zoe McQuilten of Monash University’s Transfusion Research Unit, in collaboration with colleagues from across Australia, have been awarded $1.75 million funding from the Medical Research Future Fund for the DIAAMOND project: Diagnosis of aplastic anaemia, management, and outcomes utilising a national dataset.