Dr Meena Rafiq wins MMS Publication prize

Dr Meena Rafiq, a member of the VCCC Data Connect and Cancer in Primary Care research team has been awarded the Melbourne Medical School Publication Prize for Early Career Academics in the Discovery Research stream. Her work used linked primary care data from the University of Melbourne PATRON database to examine primary care activity before diagnosis of sarcoma, a rare cancer of the bone and connective tissue. She found that Victorian sarcoma patients often have multiple GP consultations before diagnosis and repeat imaging requests, which could represent potential opportunities for earlier diagnosis. With her collaborators, they have developed a clinical tool (flowchart of recommendations) based on these findings to help GPs order the correct imaging investigations in patients with symptoms of possible sarcoma to help diagnose them earlier.