The 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis brought together thousands of the world’s leading experts on thrombosis, haemostasis and vascular biology. Held online in mid-July, the conference saw presentations from all over the world, with two of Northern Health’s presentations recognised as “Top 5 Australian Research” by ‘The Limbic’.

Dr Brandon Lui, a resident at Northern Health, was one of the participants at the conference. He started here as a student in 2017 and, in his final year, commenced research with the Haematology Department.

“The conference we presented at one of the main conferences for haematologists around the world. My submission at the conference looks at the last ten years of patients with clots that have presented to Northern Hospital. It looks at pulmonary embolisms and deep vein thrombosis, and how they have been managed. The treatment of these clots has changed significantly over the years, especially since 2013, going from warfarin to DOAC, which are novel agents. I was looking at how management has changed, including the outcomes,” he explained.

“A separate Australian body, called ‘The Limbic’, which is an editorial focusing on local scientific research, highlighted the submissions from Australia and recognised the hard work that has gone into the study and potentials of the research and outcomes. There is a small group of doctors and students who have been working on this, and we have put a lot of effort into it. There were over 3,000 entries and each one had over 100 data points. It was quite exciting for all this hard work to be recognised,” he said.

Dr Yin Lim, Head of Diagnostic Haematology and Thrombosis Research Lead, said her research team submitted six abstracts and all six got accepted. Three were accepted with a presentation webinar, and one of them was her presentation on global coagulation assays.

“This is a big accomplishment for an outer suburbs hospital like ours. Brandon has done an amazing job looking at ten years of experience with VTE management at Northern, which involves around 3,000 patients. The other chosen presentation was looking at global coagulation assays, which is part of my PhD project. We are one of the few laboratories in Australia that are able to perform a combination of different types of global coagulation assays,” she explained.

“These assays allow us to look at a more holistic picture of clot assessment including clot formation and dissolution, which we can’t assess from other standard coagulation tests. I am planning to finish my PhD in the next couple of months and we are expanding our research and hoping to validate more assays by the end of the year,” she added.

Both Brandon and Yin didn’t expect for their presentations to be recognised as “Top 5” and were pleasantly surprised to hear about the recognition.