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Queensland researchers have developed a cancer vaccine for blood cancers and solid malignancies, providing a major breakthrough in cancer treatment. Following the successful outcome of their preclinical studies the vaccine is now ready to move to human trials.

Having access to current editions and back catalogues of medical journals is critical for effective literature review, ongoing education and professional development, and is a mainstay of medical research. Through CKN, Queensland Health maintains one of the most comprehensive online medical libraries in Australia, and includes subscriptions to popular and widely used journals, such as Australian Medical Journal, The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal and JAMA, as well as journals of relevance to Queensland Health’s comprehensive Coronavirus pandemic response.

CKN spoke with Dr David Pincus, consultant paediatrician and Honorary Adjunct Professor at Bond University, who reflected on how life with journals has changed over the past 40 years.

Sterile water injections provide effective pain relief for women with labour back pain, according to University of Queensland-led research published in The Lancet journal EClinicalMedicine.

Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service clinicians, in collaboration with Griffith University and the University of Michigan, have created the world’s first paediatric appropriateness guidelines for intravenous catheters.

New QIMR Berghofer research has identified how an early genetic change in blood and bone marrow cells paves the way for the development of some blood cancers. The discovery provides a new target for treatment of the blood cancers myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). MDS is often a precursor cancer to AML, a highly aggressive form of leukaemia.

Rigorous follow-up of Indigenous patients recovering from critical illness, particularly those who have discharged themselves from hospital, is essential, a new Medical Journal of Australia paper says.

The rate of potentially fatal preterm births in Western Australian hospitals can be safely reduced by up to 20% when a coordinated series of interventions is applied to pregnant women, according to researchers at The University of Western Australia.

An Australian-first antenatal vaccine communication model for midwives showed promise for increasing uptake of maternal and childhood vaccines, according to a pilot study. The research, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and published in Vaccine, found the intervention was feasible, acceptable and improved midwives' vaccine discussions with expectant mothers.

Australia's first possible case of locally transmitted Candida auris – an emergent, multidrug-resistant yeast – was identified with two cases in one Melbourne hospital ward in 2018, and may be the first instance of transmission of C. auris in Australia, prompting warnings of the importance of greater awareness and research investment into this pathogen.

Almost 55,000 Australians develop sepsis each year, and around 8,700 people will die from it. Sepsis affects people of all ages and patients across a broad range of clinical specialties but particularly the very young, the very old and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The condition, which happens when the body has an extreme response to a bacterial or viral infection, causing a chain reaction that can lead to organ failure and death, has had few strategies for treatment. Researchers have now developed a personalised method that can accurately predict which patients with sepsis would recover quickly, recover later, or ultimately succumb to the condition.