Welcome to the latest edition of the HSA newsletter, Connections. 

Welcome to the Spring edition of the HSA newsletter. I hope everyone is going ok given the amount of respiratory illness and cold winter.

I have seen recent news from New Zealand about the Kitea sensor, it has entered human trials. I have been in touch with Simon the CEO who advised that it has been implanted in number of Adults and they expect to start child trials in September. He also advised that it detected a shunt failure post surgery and gave the neurosurgery team confidence in that diagnosis. Changes to clinical practice are not an aim at this stage however it has already started to provide clinical benefit.

After the current Kitea trial is complete early next year Kitea’s plan is to move to a larger scale pivotal trial in the US then regulatory approval. Unfortunately there is still no timeline for access to the sensor in Australia. 

We will in the next few months be sending out a survey to gauge what you think about your treatment by neurosurgeons and hospitals. We would encourage as many of you as possible to fill these in as the data will be collated and de identified and presented to the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia.

Donate to the HSA from your recycling. We are applying to become a donation partner for the container deposit schemes across Australia except South Australia. When processing your cans at a depot or machine you can select to donate the refund to charity. It's currently possible to donate this amount to us in the following locations with others to follow. 

Our Victorian CDS ID and barcode can be used at machines/depots in these regions to find us.