Blood cancers are collectively the third most common cancer in Australia and forecast to be the leader cause of cancer related death by 2030. Thousands of Western Australians are diagnosed with a blood cancer each year, and thousands more are living with the disease. While some patients are cured using chemotherapy, many are not. They need better treatments. Research – clinical trials – are the best way to deliver them.
Professor Chan Cheah is passionate about designing and conducting innovative clinical trials to offer patients with blood cancers (particularly lymphoma) access to potentially life-saving novel therapies, years before commercial availability. In 2018 he founded a charity – Blood Cancer Research WA –which supports a program to deliver trials giving access to new ways of treating blood cancer – cellular therapies, bispecific antibodies, small molecule inhibitors – at no cost to patients. During this time, Professor Cheah has developed several investigator-initiated trials in follicular lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma which are now open to enrolment, all with practice changing potential.