Melanomas gone in just seven days

AUSTRALIAN researchers have discovered a range of new treatments for melanoma which could save up to 1500 lives a year. The Sydney Melanoma Unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is conducting a clinical trial in which individual tumours are injected with a red dye called rose bengal.

Unit director John Thompson said within seven days the tumours become necrotic and die, and within 14 days they simply lift off the skin. Professor Thompson said an earlier trial of 20 patients showed between 60 and 80percent of tumours were successfully treated with one injection. The trial also found that rose bengal didn't affect healthy tissue and seemed to induce a beneficial immune system response that killed off other tumours that hadn't been injected.

"It has been interesting to observe that not only injected tumour deposits undergo involution [reduction] and necrosis but non-injected 'bystander' lesions sometimes undergo involution as well," he told the Australasian College of Dermatologists annual meeting last week. Rose bengal has been used for 50 years to diagnose liver and eye cancer. It has also been used as an insecticide.

Professor Thompson said phase one of the trial had proved the treatment was safe, although one woman ended up in intensive care with a serious reaction after driving for 1 hours in the summer sun after having her injection. For another study, Professor Thompson is hoping to recruit 65 patients who have melanomas that can't be treated with surgery.

Australia has the highest rate of melanoma in the world, with 9500 cases diagnosed annually. One in 19 Australians can expect to be diagnosed with a melanoma in their lifetime. If detected early, there is an excellent chance of survival. However, standard chemotherapy is not highly effective once the melanoma has spread.

The development of a vaccine has been elusive but researchers at the Newcastle Melanoma Unit have made a surprising breakthrough. Professor Thompson said about 120 patients were given an injection made from materials from their own tumour. The procedure was designed to stimulate the body's immune system to reject the tumour. The patients had metastatic (widespread) stage IV disease and an average life expectancy of six to nine months. The trial showed those who got the vaccine had a 40percent chance of surviving for five years, compared to 22 per cent for those who weren't vaccinated. "It surprised us greatly - there was a fairly substantial benefit in the patients who received the vaccine," Professor Thompson said.

At Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Diona Damian has treated three patients with extensive widespread melanoma with diphencyprone (DPCP), a chemical used to treat warts and hair loss. Associate Professor Damian said two patients are disease-free three years and one year later respectively, while in a third patient, the application of DPCP appeared to slow the progression of the disease but he died 18 months later.

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A bureaucrat gets the boot!

Sort of. Bureaucrats are almost totally protected from accountability, for some reason

THE senior health executive who employed the "Butcher of Bega" Graeme Reeves, despite being warned he was banned from obstetrics, has become the first head to roll over the scandal. The Greater Southern Area Health Service has suspended Dr Jon Mortimer from duty on full pay "pending the outcome of further inquiries" into the appointment of Mr Reeves, who is accused of mutilating hundreds of women while working as a gynaecologist and obstetrician.

A handwritten diary note by Dr Mortimer, who at the time was deputy director of medical services for Southern Area Health Service, shows an unnamed referee warned him that Mr Reeves "was not meant to do obstetrics". The discovery, tabled in the NSW Parliament, contradicted statements from Health Minister Reba Meagher that the health service failed to perform background checks, when it in fact did. "The [documents] show that background checks were carried out, but were then ignored or dismissed," Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner said.

Dr Mortimer is the first executive to be publicly reprimanded by NSW Health following the scandal which has rocked the health system since it was exposed by Channel Nine's Sunday program in February. Hundreds of patients have since come forward with claims of sexual assault, mutilations and botched procedures, including at several South Coast hospitals in 2002-03. Director-general of population health and chief health officer Denise Robinson, who was chief executive of SAHS at the time of Reeves's appointment, resigned this month, citing career opportunities elsewhere. Dr Mortimer's boss, Dr Robert Arthurson, remains in his position.

Mr Reeves was appointed as a visiting specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist at Bega and Pambula district hospitals after meeting Dr Mortimer and his colleague Kym Durance in January 2002. Dr Mortimer then chaired the five-member committee which recommended he be hired in March 2002. A handwritten note made by Dr Mortimer on the minutes of that meeting said "rego check" with a large tick over it. Yet Mr Reeves's registration with the NSW Medical Board was conditional and he was banned from practising obstetrics in 1997 following the death of a woman and a baby under his care.

It is unclear if his false assertion about holding current Visiting Medical Officer (VMO) appointments at Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai and Sydney Adventist hospitals were checked at the time. The Medical Error Action Group has received 575 complaints about Mr Reeves, and its founder Lorraine Long welcomed Dr Mortimer's suspension. "It's absurd the people in public service are not doing their jobs," she said. Dr Mortimer did not return calls last week. His voicemail message said he was on leave.

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Restrictions on how Australian blacks may be portrayed?

Free speech, anyone?

A LAWYER this week will seek "substantial damages" for an Aboriginal woman who believes she was racially vilified in a PhD student's film. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission accepted a racial hatred complaint filed on behalf of May Dunne, 52, a grandmother from Boulia in central-western Queensland.

In the controversial PhD film Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains Mrs Dunne was depicted as an intoxicated Aboriginal woman in a stereotypical manner, the complaint says. The film - renamed Laughing at the Disabled - by Queensland University of Technology PhD student Michael Noonan, showed Mrs Dunne in a hotel and cuddling a disabled man. The commission has named QUT; Mr Noonan; the Spectrum Organisation, which partly funded the film; its chief executive officer, John Hart, who helped film the footage; and Disability Services Queensland as respondents to the complaint.

On Thursday, the commission will hold a conciliation session with all the parties concerned and a possible settlement will be discussed. If no settlement is reached, Mrs Dunne could take the matter to the Federal Court. The controversy over the film project already has cost QUT, with the university last year reaching a substantial out-of-court settlement with senior academics Gary MacLennan and John Hookham. They were suspended without pay for six months after criticising the film for what they saw as a demeaning portrayal of two disabled men.

Ted Watson, an advocate acting on Mrs Dunne's behalf, accused Mr Noonan and QUT of breaking all protocols for conducting research involving Aboriginal people. Mr Noonan claims Mrs Dunne signed a release form after she was filmed but Mrs Dunne has signed a statement denying it. Lawyer Steve Kerin, appearing for Mr Watson and Mrs Dunne, said he would be seeking substantial compensation for Mrs Dunne on Thursday.

He said the film also breached recognised protocols for the filming of Aboriginal people. Mr Kerin said he hoped the university and Mr Noonan would "see sense" and they would be able to reach an agreed outcome. Mrs Dunne will travel from Boulia to attend the mediation session.

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Public Hospital 'a fire risk'

An audit of Mareeba Hospital and its nurses' quarters has exposed a litany of fire safety breaches that could force it to close. The Cairns Post reveals Queensland Health has been given until June 20 to make urgent repairs on Mareeba Hospital buildings described as fire hazards. Safety problems identified by the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service include faulty smoke doors in the hospital and inadequate fire safety signs, problems with locks and the lack of a fire safety management plan at the nurses quarters.

Of most concern is the nurses' quarters, with a source telling Cairns Post maintenance problems in the 60-year-old building breached the Building and Other Legislation Amendment Act, which was brought in as a result of the Childers Backpackers fire in 2000. Fifteen backpackers were killed in a horrific arson attack after they were unable to exit the burning building. "The accommodation for the nurses was not up to regulation," the source said. "It's a fire hazard."

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