The people of the village together again at ANZTCT 2024

Earlier this month we had the privilege of partnering with the Australia and New Zealand Transplant and Cellular Therapies (ANZTCT) to present their Annual Scientific Meeting in Brighton-Le-Sands, Sydney.

An amazing group of brilliant minds dedicated to treating people who need a bone marrow or stem cell transplant came together — much like the proverbial village — to share their research and current practices with each other, all with the aim of improving quality and equity of access for bone marrow and stem cell transplant recipients.

The meeting brought together health care professionals from various disciplines, offering a diverse range of perspectives and expertise. Its key objectives were to: celebrate the community, foster learning and growth, and facilitate connection, communication, strategizing, and planning – and these goals were definitely achieved.

The conference was attended by Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care and Indigenous Health, The Hon Ged Kearney, as well as Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly. The multidisciplinary focus of the meeting was highlighted as professionals from various fields involved in bone marrow transplant – such as nurses, pharmacists, physicians, scientists and data managers – shared their perspectives on the challenges they face in their roles.

Data Manager Workshop

The annual scientific meeting began with a pre-conference gathering of transplant data managers from across the country. Data managers have such an important role to play in transplant and are responsible for accurately recording thousands of bone marrow, stem cell and CAR-T transplants each year. This data helps to inform not only broader policies and practices, but also individual patient treatments.

This session had the largest attendance of Australian and NZ data managers in a face-to-face forum to date, offering a great opportunity to share data management processes and best practices. Arrow is proud to have supported this gathering, and to have provided assistance for ten interstate and regional members to attend:

Alia Cibich, Data Manager from Royal Adelaide Hospital
Sriyani Parsons, CAR-T Data Manager from Alfred Health
Agata Sadowska, Senior Clinical Research Associate from Perth Children’s Hospital
Phillip Stanley Collard, Data Manager from Calvary Mater Hospital in Newcastle
Jodie Marsh, Nurse Practitioner BMT from Townsville University Hospital
Bianca Demirtel, Data Manager from the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne
Caroline Stewart, Data Manager & Clinical Nurse from Royal Brisbane Hospital
Bianca Nguyen, BMT Data Manager from Fiona Stanley Hospital
Blanca Menendez, Data Manager from Royal Brisbane Hospital
Peter Edgar, Clinical Nurse Specialist, HPC Transplant Coordinator, Data Manager at Greenslopes Private Hospital

Sriyani Parsons, CAR-T Data Manager from Alfred Health and recipient of an Arrow travel scholarship, had this to say about the conference:

“[I wish] to convey my sincere gratitude for the Arrow Foundation scholarship and the opportunity to attend this year’s ANZTCT ASM in Sydney last week. I was honoured to be welcomed into the “village” amongst such esteemed clinicians, nurses, scientists and academics. It was such an amazing 4 days of learning, sharing, and networking, starting with the Inaugural Data Manager workshop on Wednesday 4th September and concluding with the last panel discussion on Saturday evening. What an incredible line up of speakers there were, with a wide range of talks from informative and engaging presentations, to very entertaining debates! All encapsulated in a spirit of equity, inclusivity and respect. Thank you for your inspiration, leadership and vision, for having the courage to explore the tougher questions, and work together to encourage empathy and a deeper understanding, particularly of our indigenous cultures.”

Research abstract presentations

Yvonne Panek-Hudson, our Patients and Programs Committee Chair, along with Richelle Koller CEO, also had the pleasure of providing an update on Arrow’s programs and introducing two Arrow research scholarship recipients, Leah Peters and Sanjana Rangi.

Leah and Sanjana presented their research on allogeneic stem cell transplants using data extracted from the ANZTCT registry. Leah focused on First Nations Australian transplant recipients, whilst Sanjana examined trends in B Cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia patients.

The registry data provided valuable insights into trends among allogeneic transplant recipients. Arrow has a close relationship to the data registry, having established the original ANZTCT Registry (formerly known as the Australian Bone Marrow Transplant Recipient Registry) over thirty years ago, and we are pleased to see this data being used for impactful research.

Paint The Town Red

An extra special part of the conference for us was the conference dinner, which was thrown over to “Paint the Town Red”. Paint the Town Red is our exciting new fundraising campaign created by the Arrow team and launched at the conference thanks to ANZTCT members whose support for bone marrow & stem cell patients goes above and beyond their professional expertise. The ANZTCT Paint the Town Red dinner was a fun filled night of red outfits, dinner and dancing. The event raised $2,500 for our patient support program, marking a fantastic kick off to our Paint the Town Red fundraising campaign during September’s blood cancer awareness month.