Dr. Colin Luke is the Clinical Epidemiologist and Senior Specialist Consultant in
Public Health Medicine to the Epidemiology Branch of the Department of Health. 

Dr. Luke joined the South Australian Health Commission in 1987 following 15 years of
private medical practice. His first position was with the Injury Surveillance Unit and
then Medical and Scientific Consultant to the Lead Decontamination Program, Pt. Pirie.
The resultant research activity formed the basis for his Masters Thesis in Public Health,
namely “A study of factors associated with trends in blood lead levels in Port Pirie
children exposed to home-based interventions”. Dr. Luke also provided a medical
consultancy to the Environmental Health Branch, addressing the problems associated with
contaminated lands in metropolitan Adelaide and represented the Health Commission at the
National Greenhouse forum in 1988 and the Menzies Foundation sponsored International
Conference on Ozone Layer Depletion and Health. He became the Health Commission
spokesperson pertaining to these global environmental issues. 

In 1990, Dr. Luke was awarded the inaugural Malcolm T. Collings post-graduate Traineeship
in Public Health Medicine. He also managed a national study, “The Biokinetics of Lead in
Human Pregnancy” at the University of Adelaide, Department of Community Medicine
concerning the sources of environmental and biological lead contamination in the cities
of Port Pirie, Hobart and Adelaide. 

A Clinical Epidemiology Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was established in 1992
& Dr. Luke was appointed Director. A similar unit was then established within the
Epidemiology Branch and Dr. Luke was appointed to his current position. Epidemiological
and clinical advice is provided to health unit based clinicians, the South Australian
Cancer Registry, hospital-based Clinical Registries located in the major teaching
hospitals (RAH, TQEH, FMC), other units within the Branch and to other sections of the
Department of Health. 

Dr. Luke holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, a Masters in Public Health, and was
recently awarded a Doctorate in Medicine (University of Adelaide). His Doctorate explored
the collective utility of population-based and clinical cancer registries in assessing
epidemiological, treatment and outcome characteristics of cancer in South Australia. He
is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Physicians, Royal Australasian College of
Physicians.

Articles

Exploring trends in laryngeal cancer incidence, mortality and survival : implications for research and cancer control (with Eric Yeoh and David M. Roder), Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention (2008)
South Australian registry data were used to investigate trends in laryngeal cancer age-standardised incidence, mortality...
 
Exploring the epidemiological characteristics of cancers of unknown primary site in an Australian population: implications for research and clinical care (with Bogda Koczwara, Christos Karapetis, Ken Pittman, Tim Price, Dusan Kotasek, Kerry Beckmann, Michael P. Brown, and David Roder), Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (2008)
Objectives: To investigate incidence, mortality and case survival trends for cancer of unknown primary site...
 
Benchmarking epidemiological characteristics of cervical cancer in advance of change in screening practice and commencement of vaccination (with Anh-Minh Nguyen, Adrian Heard, Bernadette Kenny, Lesley Shorne, and David Roder), Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (2007)
To investigate trends in cervical cancer incidence, mortality and survival by histology for benchmarking purposes...
 
Treatment and survival from breast cancer: the experience of patients at South Australian teaching hospitals between 1977 and 2003 (with Grantley Gill, Stephen Birrell, Vlad Humeniuk, Martin Borg, Christos Karapetis, Bogda Koczwara, Ian Olver, Michael Penniment, Ken Pittman, Tim Price, David Walsh, Eng Kiat (Eric), and David Roder), Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice (2007)
Treatment guidelines recommend a more conservative surgical approach than mastectomy for early stage breast cancer...
 
Myeloid Leukaemia Treatment and Survival - the South Australian Experience, 1977 to 2002 (with Anh-Minh Nguyen, Bik To, Ram Seshadri, Tim Hughes, Peter Bardy, Margaret Colbeck, Dianne Buranyi-Trevarton, Maureen McMellon, and David Roder), Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention (2006)
To evaluate trends in survival and treatment for myeloid leukaemia in South Australia during 1977-...