Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to acknowledge an important person in my community who recently led a team that has made a world-first medical breakthrough. Associate Professor Tom Shakespeare is a radiation oncologist working in the Mid North Coast and northern New South Wales local health districts. His team has published a world-first evaluation of a revolutionary radiation therapy that has left patients cancer free after two years. This evaluation looked at the effectiveness of a new prostate cancer treatment using a scan to detect tiny deposits of cancer in patients' lymph nodes.

In the past, the diagnosis of prostate cancer which had spread to the lymph glands was not good. However, modern advances in radiation therapy and PET scan imaging mean that men can now be offered targeted, curative radiation therapy. Professor Shakespeare said:

For the first time, men can be treated with the aim of totally eradicating the prostate cancer within both lymph nodes and the prostate.

The evaluation followed the first 46 patients from the Lismore, Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour areas treated using this new technique and found that, two years following radiation therapy, all patients were cancer free. This is fantastic work. I congratulate and thank Tom Shakespeare and all of his team.

See this speech in context