Publications by authors named "Eric Hau"

Background: Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG) and other H3K27M-mutated diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) are brain tumors that primarily affect children. Radiotherapy is the standard of care but only provides temporary symptomatic relief due to radioresistance. While hypoxia is a major driver of radioresistance in other tumors, there is no definitive evidence that DIPGs are hypoxic.

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Introduction: The patterns of oligoprogression after first-line immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for metastatic NSCLC are yet to be well established. An increasing volume of data suggests that directed radiotherapy improves survival outcomes in patients with progression after ICIs.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed on patients with metastatic NSCLC who had completed first-line programmed death-(ligand) 1 inhibitor therapy with or without chemotherapy at two high-volume cancer centers.

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Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is an innovative modality for the treatment of refractory ventricular arrhythmias (VAs). Phase 1/2 clinical trials have demonstrated the remarkable efficacy of SBRT at reducing VA burden (by >85%) in patients with good short-term safety. SBRT as an option for VA treatment delivered in an ambulatory nonsedated patient in a single fraction during an outpatient session of 15 to 30 minutes, without added risks of anesthetic or surgery, is clinically relevant.

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Patients with advanced NSCLC have heterogenous responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) with or without chemotherapy. In NSCLC, the impact of the distribution of metastatic sites and the response to systemic therapy combinations remain poorly understood. In a retrospective cohort study of patients with unresectable stage III/IV NSCLC who received first-line systemic therapy, we sought to assess the association between the site of metastases with patterns of response and progression.

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Ventricular arrhythmias (VA) can be life-threatening arrhythmias that result in significant morbidity and mortality. Catheter ablation (CA) is an invasive treatment modality that can be effective in the treatment of VA where medications fail. Recurrence occurs commonly following CA due to an inability to deliver lesions of adequate depth to cauterise the electrical circuits that drive VA or reach areas of scar responsible for VA.

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Article Synopsis
  • Conventional radiotherapy (RT) involves a set total dose given in fractions over weeks, but this one-size-fits-all method can be ineffective due to differences in patients and tumors.
  • Personalized RT approaches, particularly using artificial intelligence (AI) and small data phenotypic medicine (PM), allow for treatment adjustments based on individual patient responses in real-time.
  • This paper explores the benefits and limitations of implementing PM for tailoring RT doses, which can enhance treatment efficacy and minimize risks of over or under-treatment, in conjunction with other therapeutic methods.
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Objective To evaluate the perceptions of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) initiated workplace strategies implemented in radiation oncology departments across Australia. Methods A multidisciplinary team from Princess Alexandra Hospital developed a survey to address the impact of the pandemic strategies on areas such as patient care, staff education, well-being, flexible working arrangements, and research. The survey was conducted from November 2020 to April 2021.

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Introduction: Brain metastases commonly occur in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Standard first-line treatment for NSCLC, without an EGFR, ALK or ROS1 mutation, is either chemoimmunotherapy or anti-PD-1 monotherapy. Traditionally, patients with symptomatic or untreated brain metastases were excluded from the pivotal clinical trials that established first-line treatment recommendations.

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Purpose: The aim of this study was to report pulmonary function tests (PFTs) and clinician-reported and patient-reported quality-of-life (QoL) outcomes on a cohort of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with SABR.

Methods And Materials: A total of 119 patients with NSCLC were treated with SABR in the prospective cohort SSBROC study of patients with T1-T2N0M0 NSCLC. PFTs and QoL measures were obtained at baseline pretreatment and at 6-month intervals.

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Article Synopsis
  • Durvalumab is a standard treatment for unresectable stage III non-small-cell lung cancer after chemoradiotherapy, but not all patients qualify based on the PACIFIC trial criteria.
  • In a study of 126 patients treated at two centers, 56% were eligible for durvalumab, with ineligible patients experiencing worse progression-free and overall survival times.
  • The findings suggest that even patients who do not meet eligibility criteria for the PACIFIC trial can still benefit from durvalumab, indicating the treatment is both safe and effective for a broader range of patients in real-world settings.
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A/Prof Eric Hau is a clinician-scientist with interest in lung and CNS tumours. His clinical and laboratory research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of radiation resistance and investigating drugs which may be utilised for radiation sensitisation to improve outcomes for patients. Associate Professor Warren Clements is an Interventional Radiologist at Alfred Health and has an Adjunct appointment with the Department of Surgery, Central Clinical School, Monash University.

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Immune checkpoint inhibition with PD-1/PD-L1 blockade is a promising area in the field of anti-cancer therapy. Although clinical data have revealed success of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade as monotherapy or in combination with CTLA-4 or chemotherapy, the combination with radiotherapy could further boost anti-tumour immunity and enhance clinical outcomes due to the immunostimulatory effects of radiation. However, the synergistic combination of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade and radiotherapy can be challenged by the complex nature of the tumour microenvironment (TME), including the presence of tumour hypoxia.

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Background: There are limited data on survival prediction models in contemporary inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a survival prediction model in a cohort of inoperable stage I-III NSCLC patients treated with radiotherapy.

Methods: Data from inoperable stage I-III NSCLC patients diagnosed from 1/1/2016 to 31/12/2017 were collected from three radiation oncology clinics.

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Purpose: Posttreatment surveillance for local recurrence (LR) after stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) can include both fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) and computed tomography (CT). Radiation-induced lung injury shares a similar appearance to LR after treatment, making the detection of LR on imaging difficult for clinicians. We aimed to summarize radiologic features of CT and FDG-PET predicting LR and to evaluate radiomics as another tool for detecting LR.

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Objective: The purpose of this narrative review is to survey the current literature and provide treatment recommendations for the management of patients with brain metastases (BMs) from small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

Background: BMs are very common in patients with SCLC and management has changed significantly in recent years. Radiation techniques and systemic therapies have evolved and this review will highlight these recent studies and implications on clinical practice.

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Background: Radiation therapy (RT) plays a key role in curative-intent treatment for locally advanced lung cancer. Radiation induced pulmonary toxicity can be significant for some patients and becomes a limiting factor for radiation dose, suitability for treatment, as well as post treatment quality of life and suitability for the newly introduced adjuvant immunotherapy. Modern RT techniques aim to minimise the radiation dose to the lungs, without accounting for regional distribution of lung function.

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Introduction: There is significant potential to analyse and model routinely collected data for radiotherapy patients to provide evidence to support clinical decisions, particularly where clinical trials evidence is limited or non-existent. However, in practice there are administrative, ethical, technical, logistical and legislative barriers to having coordinated data analysis platforms across radiation oncology centres.

Methods: A distributed learning network of computer systems is presented, with software tools to extract and report on oncology data and to enable statistical model development.

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As the cornerstone of high-grade glioma (HGG) treatment, radiotherapy temporarily controls tumor cells via inducing oxidative stress and subsequent DNA breaks. However, almost all HGGs recur within months. Therefore, it is important to understand the underlying mechanisms of radioresistance, so that novel strategies can be developed to improve the effectiveness of radiotherapy.

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Background: Dynamic transitions of tumour cells along the epithelial-mesenchymal axis are important in tumorigenesis, metastasis and therapy resistance.

Methods: In this study, we have used cell lines, 3D spheroids and tumour samples in a variety of cell biological and transcriptome analyses to highlight the cellular and molecular dynamics of OSCC response to ionising radiation.

Results: Our study demonstrates a prominent hybrid epithelial-mesenchymal state in oral squamous cell carcinoma cells and tumour samples.

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: The standard of care for locoregionally advanced rectal cancer is neoadjuvant therapy (NA CRT) prior to surgery, of which 10-30% experience a complete pathologic response (pCR). There has been interest in using imaging features, also known as radiomics features, to predict pCR and potentially avoid surgery. This systematic review aims to describe the spectrum of MRI studies examining high-performing radiomic features that predict NA CRT response.

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High-grade gliomas (HGGs), including glioblastoma and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, are amongst the most fatal brain tumors. These tumors are associated with a dismal prognosis with a median survival of less than 15 months. Radiotherapy has been the mainstay of treatment of HGGs for decades; however, pronounced radioresistance is the major obstacle towards the successful radiotherapy treatment.

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Radiotherapy is the cornerstone of treatment of high-grade gliomas (HGGs). It eradicates tumor cells by inducing oxidative stress and subsequent DNA damage. Unfortunately, almost all HGGs recur locally within several months secondary to radioresistance with intricate molecular mechanisms.

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Treatment personalisation remains an unmet need in oropharynx cancer (OPC). We aimed to determine whether gene expression signatures improved upon clinico-pathological predictors of outcome in OPC. The clinico-pathological predictors, AJCC version 7 (AJCC 7), AJCC 8, and a clinical algorithm, were assessed in 4 public series of OPC (n = 235).

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Radiotherapy is an important modality used for the treatment of lung cancer. Seventy-seven percent of all patients with lung cancer have an evidence-based indication for radiotherapy, although it is often underutilized. Radiotherapy can be used as curative or palliative treatment across all stages of disease.

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