Former Australian of the Year Richard Scolyer has revealed his brain cancer has returned and surgery to remove it was unsuccessful.
Scolyer was diagnosed with an incurable form of brain cancer in 2023 and it was treated with pioneering immunotherapy based on his own research.
But in a post on Instagram on Tuesday evening Scolyer said “unfortunately there is a larger volume of quickly growing brain cancer (glioblastoma) in my left brain”.
“The prognosis is poor.”
Last week Scolyer, who has documented his experience with brain cancer on social media, shared that he had undergone surgery at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse in Sydney, though he did not reveal the reason behind the operation. At the time he said he was “focused on my recovery”.
In the most recent update he said most of the new tumour was removed last week but “some of it couldn’t [be] because of its site”.
He said the immunotherapy and other cancer treatment he received “may have made a difference in my brain tumour and survival”, but more work was needed in a clinical trial to prove this.
“Either way I am proud” of the research behind the treatment, which was published in the journal Nature Medicine, he said. “I hope [it] will make a difference for others.
“I greatly appreciate the support of all my family, friends & colleagues who have been looking after me so well & the incredible research that has been performed. I hope the latter will change the field & patient outcomes in the not too distant future.”
Scolyer told the Sydney Morning Herald the medical prognosis was that he has “months, not years” to live.
Scolyer told Guardian Australian last year: “Basically this sort of tumour spreads like tree roots that run through your brain. If you look down a microscope you can’t see where it ends. So you can never cure it with surgery or radiation therapy. If you tried to cut the whole tumour out, you wouldn’t have much brain left.”
Scolyer was the joint Australian of the Year in 2024 with his colleague Georgina Long for their work in revolutionising melanoma treatment, including through immunotherapy research over the past 20 years.
Scolyer, who with Long is the co-director of the Melanoma Institute Australia at the University of Sydney, was diagnosed with grade-4 IDH-wildtype glioblastoma after collapsing in a hotel room in Poland in late 2023. The diagnosis for his cancer was that it was terminal and he likely had only months to live.
After his diagnosis, he became the first person to receive the immunotherapy treatment he and Long had developed to treat melanoma for brain cancer. The immunotherapy treatment has been hugely successful for melanoma patients: in 15 years, the five-year survival rate for advanced melanoma had gone from 5% to 55%.
