A Queensland-led program bringing specialised health care to patients in remote parts of the country is set to expand.
The Australian Teletrial Program (ATP) connects rural and regional doctors with specialists through communication technologies such as video-conferencing allowing them to facilitate clinical trials for diseases such as cancer.
Cairns resident Vesselin Petkov, who works as an anaesthetist at Cairns Base Hospital, was diagnosed with a rare form of Hodgkin's lymphoma two years ago.
He said travelling hundreds of kilometres from his home to Townsville for several months to take part in a clinical trial to treat the disease took its toll.
"It's a really tough, tough experience. Not only physically but mentally," he said.
"You deal with the side-effects by yourself without any family support.
"When you finish the treatment and get discharged from the hospital, you don't have anywhere to go, so you go to the airport to wait for the flight home and hope the side-effects don't kick in before you get there."
Through the program, Dr Petkov was able to participate in the clinical trial at his local hospital in Cairns.
"It meant no more early morning flights, personal expenses, dealing with side effects alone away from the family," he said.
The teletrial model was first piloted in north Queensland in 2018.
Since the official beginning of the program in October last year, 584 participants have been involved in more than 90 clinical trials remotely.
In 2020, Queensland Health secured $75 million in funding from the Commonwealth Medical Research Future Fund.
Program directors said that funding would now be used to expand the program to reach 5,000 Australians across 2,400 new clinical trial sites by 2026.
Travel vs telehealth
The Regional Clinical trial Coordinating Centre (RCCC) for Queensland will be based in Townsville where the model for the program was conceptualised.
Senior Medical Oncologist at Townsville Hospital and Health Service, Professor Sabe Sabesan says the initiative will ensure regional Australians aren't missing out on specialised health care.
"Patients on clinical trials have better outcomes compared to patients not on clinical trials," he said.
"In the past, many patients from regional rural areas and even metropolitan areas, when patients need to be on clinical trials, they actually have to travel away to proceed with the clinical trial intervention," he said.
"What normally happens is because of the difficulties the majority of the patients don't even take part in it.
"Now, we should be able to make the clinical trials available to as many patients or communities as possible simply because of the telehealth model."
From hospital to home
Taking part in a clinical trial through ATP has made a life-changing difference to Dr Petkov.
"So far I'm in full remission, and I feel really good, and I'm back to work.
"I feel 100 per cent," he said.
Prof Sabesan says the program isn't just for cancer patients but can be adapted to clinical trials of any kind.
"It could be used for different diseases, different devices, medications, therapeutic interventions, surgical interventions, but also for allied health, psychosocial intervention," he said.
"If it is new [treatment], then we want to use this program to extend that access to everyone."
