The Cancer and Chronic Disease Research Group covers four main broad research areas including:
- the management of chronic liver disease (e.g. cirrhosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), chronic hepatitis C) and hepatocellular carcinoma (the most common type of liver cancer)
- quality of life, supportive care needs and health literacy of patients with cirrhosis and liver cancer aimed at designing suitable interventions that may delay the natural progression of disease to cirrhosis complications and liver cancer
- epidemiology of chronic liver disease (e.g. cirrhosis, NAFLD, chronic hepatitis C, and liver cancer
- investigating the reasons for poorer health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people diagnosed with cirrhosis and liver cancer compared to other Australians.
CURRENT RESEARCH
- leading the research on unmet needs of people diagnosed with cirrhosis with the development and validation of the only specific health needs assessment tool for cirrhosis
- understanding patient and health system factors that impact on health outcomes for patients with cirrhosis
- assessing individual patients’ supportive care needs has potential utility in clinical practice to promote patient-centred care and for facilitating timely referrals to diverse multidisciplinary support services
- describing the epidemiology of cirrhosis in Queensland focussing on the prevalence of hospital admissions, cirrhosis complications and patient outcomes, the prevalence of common infections in patients with cirrhosis (e.g. cirrhosis spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, sepsis), causative organisms, antibiotic resistance and clinical outcomes, and the reasons for poorer health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people hospitalised with cirrhosis
- the Observational, Prospective Epidemiological Registry in Australia of Hepatitis C virus Liver Disease (OPERA-C) is a prospective registry study evaluating outcomes in patients treated for hepatitis C virus across 29 Australian hospitals
- collaborating with clinicians and researchers from the Flinders Medical Centre to the conduct the first multi-jurisdictional, large-scale epidemiological study describing and understanding differences between hepatocellular carcinoma incidence, cause and survival in Indigenous and non- Indigenous people
- collaborating with clinicians from Metro South and the Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Services, and researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on two projects examining pragmatic approaches to risk stratification pathways for patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
- assessment of (NAFLD) for advanced fibrosis in primary care and diabetes clinics
Staff
- Catherine Brown, Project Officer
- Dilum Ekanayake, PhD Student (Non-Review)
- Karen Simmons, Affiliate
Internal Collaborators
- Dr Christina Bernardes
- Associate Professor Gunter Hartel
- Dr Graham Radford-Smith
External Collaborators
- Centre for Liver Disease Research
- Princess Alexandra Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
- Prince Charles Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
- Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
- Mater Hospital Brisbane, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
- Sunshine Coast University Hospital
- School of Medicine, The University of Queensland
- Queensland University of Technology, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation
- Menzies School of Health Research
- Ethnic Community Council Queensland (ECCQ)
- Cancer Council Queensland
- Queensland Government & Queensland Health
- Flinders Medical Centre
- International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
- The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals
- The Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, University College London
We gratefully acknowledge support from:
- Gambling Community Benefit Fund
- Gastroenterology Society of Australia (GESA)
- Metro South Hospital and Health Services
- NHMRC
- Princess Alexandra Research Foundation