Melbourne carpenter David Roumeliotis has welcomed Australia’s first subsidised immunotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), a rare and aggressive head and neck cancer that once left patients with few options.
Toripalimab, sold as Zytorvi by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, was listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme this week – a move rare cancer advocates hailed as “an important step towards equity.”
Roumeliotis, 53, from Ivanhoe East, was diagnosed with NPC last year after months of fatigue, joint inflammation and a lump in his neck that he initially dismissed.
“I thought maybe I was coming down with a flu; I just thought it was normal,” he told The Australian.
Looking back, he realises the signs were there. “You can see a lump in my neck, but we just didn’t think,” he said. “I remember waking up having night terrors.”
His treatment was intense – nine weeks of chemotherapy, seven weeks of radiotherapy and the removal of 17 lymph nodes. Eight months on, he remains cancer-free.
The new immunotherapy offers reassurance for patients like him. “It gives a little bit of comfort knowing that’s available if something was to come back and haunt me.”
NPC affects around 200 Australians a year, often younger men, and carries high risks of facial disfigurement and psychological strain.
Clinicians say the PBS listing marks a major shift for a cancer long overlooked due to its rarity and prevalence among migrant communities.
Peter MacCallum specialist Danny Rischin said immunotherapy access would significantly improve care “where treatment options have been limited and the outlook for patients is often challenging”.
Source: The Australian.
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