Australian of the Year Richard Scolyer still cancer-free after 18 months of experimental brain cancer treatment
Australian of the Year Richard Scolyer continues to defy the odds, marking 18 months with no recurrence of a deadly brain cancer.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Professor Scolyer wrote on his social media on Wednesday night as he shared the results of his latest MRI scan.
“The question is whether where I’m up to, and how I’m going is it related to the treatment that I’ve had, or is it just luck? No-one knows the answer to that question,” he said in the video.
Professor Scolyer was the first in the world to receive immunotherapy before removing a brain tumour — the very treatment he had developed with colleagues to treat melanomas.
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He said he’s “functioning pretty well” — even competing recently in multi-sport events, Park Runs, charity bike rides and fun runs including the City2Surf.
The treatment has also allowed him to enjoy time with his family — children Emily, Matthew and Lucy, and wife Katie — and continue his duties as the joint 2024 Australian of the Year, a title he shares with colleague Georgina Long.
At every step in the fight against “the worst of the worst” type of brain cancer, Professor Scolyer has been documenting his treatment for social media followers around the globe to follow.
And the 18-month milestone was no exception, with an outpouring of support.
He said after 14 doses of immunotherapy he was amazed there were still no signs of recurrence of his glioblastoma.
“I’m just delighted to be here. Loving life.”
Hope but ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do’
When he was diagnosed with glioblastoma IDH wild-type at age 56, he knew the odds were not good. He might have six months to live, perhaps the median of 14 months.
He knew treatment had not changed in 18 years — remove as much of the tumour as possible, then radiation and chemotherapy.
“Unfortunately for me, I got one of the worst of the worst brain cancers where there isn’t a cure for it. Bugger that. I’m not happy to accept that,” he told Australian Story in 2023. “I want to do something that gives me a fighting chance against this tumour.”
One of the world’s top melanoma pathologists, Professor Scolyer, his co-director of the Melanoma Institute Australia, Professor Long, and their colleagues took everything they had learnt about fighting melanoma and adapted it to brain cancer treatment.
Richard Scolyer says he has so far had 14 doses of the experimental treatment and MRI scans have come back clear every time. (Supplied: Richard Scolyer)
Professor Scolyer had pre-surgery combination immunotherapy and a personalised cancer vaccine, but opted out of chemotherapy because it suppresses the immune system. It was a risky choice — the prognosis of life without chemotherapy is just six months.
It’s paid off, with no signs of recurrence so far.
However, he warned in his latest Instagram update that it is unclear from these “laboratory results” if this is an answer to cancer treatment, but said it does give hope.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do to push the field forward to help future brain cancer patients,” he said.
“We’ve created some scientific data by comparing my brain tumour before I had immunotherapy with it afterwards, and that showed some increase in the immune cells within the tumour.
“Ultimately, what we need to do is a clinical trial that compares two groups of patients who are treated differently to see if this sort of treatment actually works.”
Richard Scolyer is relishing the extra time with his family. (Australian Story: Jack Fisher)
Using skin cancer treatment for brain cancer
Professor Scolyer and his colleagues at the Melanoma Institute Australia revolutionised the treatment of the deadly skin cancer by using combination immunotherapy before removing the melanoma.
Passionate about “the power of research” he said he wanted to “change the face of medicine and cancer treatment”.
“With immunotherapy, we stimulate the immune system in a very specific way so that the immune system can see the enemy, that’s the cancer, and kill it,” Professor Long told Australian Story in 2023.
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Fifteen years ago, patients with melanoma that had spread through the body had a less than 5 per cent, five-year survival rate. The pioneering immunotherapy work by the professors and the institute team increased that rate to 55 per cent.
The immunotherapy approach was a breakthrough and the results were phenomenal — some patients were cured.
Such an approach had never been tried on brain cancer patients before. Until Professor Scolyer put his hand up to be a “guinea pig”.
He said the data from his treatment will be released in a publication in “the not-too-distant future”.
Watch Professor Richard Scolyer’s Australian Story episode on ABC iview.
