Cancer Council Victoria and St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne have developed a suite of new resources for healthcare workers to use with patients to provide practical information on managing hepatitis B to prevent liver damage and liver cancer.
Cancer Council Victoria is encouraging healthcare professionals to use a new suite of resources developed to help patients living with hepatitis B understand the virus, how it can be managed and its link to liver cancer.
Linking patients living with hepatitis B to monitoring and treatment is fundamental in preventing liver cancer and improving health outcomes. Almost 70 per cent of people diagnosed with hepatitis B in Victoria are not in care (either treatment or monitoring).
As part of helping health workers have a conversation with their patients on the importance of regular monitoring and treatment to prevent liver cancer, Cancer Council Victoria was recently funded by the Victorian Department of Health to develop a flipchart resource – Preventing Hepatitis B-related Liver Cancer.
The illustrated flipchart contains patient-facing pages with an imagery and plain English information. The reverse pages are for healthcare workers and provide more information to verbally discuss hepatitis and liver cancer with their patient.
St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, in collaboration with Cancer Council Victoria, has also recently developed a guided learning resource Me, My Baby and Hepatitis B which will support antenatal care providers to discuss hepatitis B testing, vaccination, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, management and liver cancer prevention. It also includes a Clinician’s Quick Guide on hepatitis B testing and management in pregnancy and beyond.
The resources align with one of the goals in the Victorian hepatitis B plan 2022-30 , that Victorians living with hepatitis B have access to best practice evidence-based treatment and care and the Victorian Cancer Plan 2020-24 priority action to prevent and reduce hepatitis related cancers.
For more information about hepatitis and liver cancer, visit Cancer Council Victoria’s website.
For more information about these new resources or to order the resources for your clinic, please contact Screening.Resources@cancervic.org.au.