Richard Scolyer: Amazing advances in medicine over the past half century

Richard Scolyer shared on X:

“Medicine has made many amazing advances over the past half century. One is around drug development and improving pharmaceutical options. Another is around allergy testing. People can be allergic to a wide range of things.

Allergies can also range in severity from serious life-threatening ones (anaphylaxis) to milder forms like skin rashes. There are now a variety of ways to perform allergy testing. As a kid less than 5yo, I was pretty scrawny and had recurrent episodes of tonsillitis and other infectious illnesses.

I think I developed a skin rash when I was on penicillin and it was thought to be an allergy. Drugs (including penicillins) have changed over the past 50 years; it was recently recommended to me by an expert that I be formally tested now to see if my allergy to penicillin as a child still persists with modern forms of penicillins.

The idea was that if/when my glioblastoma goes downhill, penicillin antibiotics may be a handy “tool in the tool shed”!

After controlled testing by an expert allergy immunologist, it was concluded that I’m safe to take modern penicillin! Fingers crossed I don’t need it!”

Source: Richard Scolyer/X

Professor Richard Scolyer AO is a Senior Staff Specialist in Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, and Co-Medical Director at Melanoma Institute Australia. He is also a Conjoint Professor at Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney.

In June 2021, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia for his distinguished service in melanoma and skin cancer research. Additionally, he is Vice Chair of the Melanoma Expert Panel for the AJCC Cancer Staging System and co-leads the Australian Melanoma Genome Project.