Professor Neil Piller

Professor Neil Brenton Piller is a Lymphologist. He is a board member of the International Society for Lymphology and the Australian College of Phlebology. He is an advisory committee member of ENCORE and a board member of the South Australian Health Compression Garment Scheme and a member of the Australasian Lymphoedema Association Research Committee and the scientific committee of the international group Vasculab.

Neil is Clinical Sciences Editor of the “Journal of Lymphoedema”, Australasian Editor of “Lymphatic Research/Biology” and an Editorial Board member of “Lymphology” and “Phlebology”. He is Director of the Lymphoedema Clinical Research Unit at Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer. He supervises PhD/MD students one of whom is investigating the impact of climate change on chronic oedemas and another investigating aspects of education and awareness delivered to professionals and patients and its impact.

Neil is patron of the National Australian Lipoedema Support Group and the Lymphoedema Association of Australia as well as the Lymphoedema Association of South Australia.

Neil participated in the NLN 2021 awareness month with a talk on “What makes a good therapist”. He was an invited virtual speaker at the ISL meeting in Greece and the ICC meeting in Paris. He was invited keynote speaker at the 2022 Wounds Australia Conference in Sydney and keynote at the 2022 British Lymphoedema Society meeting in the UK where he was the lead of the Pro MLD team debate which they won over the Against MLD team. 

Neil and team members have a wide range of interests including determining the accuracy of applied pressure profiles during lower leg bandaging using a fibre-optic sensing tape and examining the effect of massage delivered by pads on normal and lymphoedematous legs.  His most recent editorials have dealt with the relationship between diet, the microbiome, gut health, lymphatics, the brain and MLD, and about “Pressure: Are we getting it right?” as well as “What about us- the Patient Perspective” in the Journal of Lymphoedema in 2020 and “Are we there yet” in the 2021 issue. His 2022 Editorial “Prospective Surveillance, prophylactic treatment and proactivity, and … problems solved” stimulated much interest in the area of how we can be more proactive.

Neil is committed to improving the outcomes for lymphoedema patients by ensuring treatment strategies are targeted/sequenced. Most important are the strategies to improve outcomes by helping therapists and clinicians deliver what is optimal and which meet patient functional and personal needs with a holistic multi-disciplinary approach, based on quality information.