News

Nearly 20% of patients with cancer engaged in nonmedical opioid use, but oncology nurses can help prevent this from happening.

Although lung-sparing lung nodule resection in the form of lesser resection is available to some patients with lung cancer, it is critical to tailor surgical interventions based on pathologic assessment results, said Henning Gaissert, MD, who added that utilizing a multimodal approach to treatment can help alleviate some of the burden of treatment selection.

The radiographic and pathologic responses that have been seen with checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer bodes well for the use of neoadjuvant therapy. However, the relationship between response and long-term outcomes, specifically with regard to overall survival, will have to be teased out before they become standard practice, explained David Spigel, MD.

The FDA has granted priority review to a biologics license application (BLA) for retifanlimab (INCMGA 0012) for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC) who were intolerant of or who had progressed on platinum-based chemotherapy.

The FDA approved cabozantinib (Cabometyx) plus nivolumab (Opdivo) for the frontline treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) today release guidance for COVID-19 vaccinations in patients with cancer.

Findings of an epidemiological study show that regular aspirin use could boost survival in older patients with breast and bladder cancers, but more research is still needed.

Vaccine rollout continues to be slow, so social distancing and mask wearing should remain common practice, nurses say.

The FDA has granted a priority review to a supplemental biologics license application for nivolumab (Opdivo) in combination with a fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy for use in patients with advanced or metastatic gastric cancer, gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer, or esophageal adenocarcinoma.

The wrath of the pandemic swept through our nation and continues to run rampant, testing our resiliency as nurses. Nurse leaders, we must continue to lead by example and remain a united front with our team.

The FDA has granted a fast track designation to padeliporfin Immune Photo Activated Cancer Therapy (ImPACT) for use in the treatment of patients with low-grade and unifocal upper-tract urothelial cancer (UTUC), according to an announcement from Steba Biotech.

We spoke with a group of oncology nurses about the questions that patients are asking regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.

Mean daily step count during the first 2 weeks of treatment with SM-88 (racemetyrosine) was found to correlate with overall self-reported quality of life (QoL) in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Survival for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) remains poor, and although immunotherapy has been positioned as a holy grail, it would be preemptive to predict its future based on the number of small studies that have been performed to date, according to Amer Zeidan, MD, MHS.

An artificial-intelligence based tool helped patients find and understand clinical trials, which could eventually lead to more diverse trial populations.

The FDA approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic HER2-postive gastric or gastroesophageal (GEJ) adenocarcinoma who previously received a trastuzumab-based regimen.

Findings from an analysis determined that stage 4 gastrointestinal stromal tumors were rare and led to hepatic metastases, although overall survival was up to 51% at 5 years.

The FDA has approved crizotinib for the treatment of pediatric patients 1 year of age and older and young adults with ALK-positive relapsed or refractory, systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

We spoke with researchers on the factors that led to nurse loneliness – and what can be done to help.

The management of patients with colorectal liver metastases is complicated and requires careful assessment from a multidisciplinary tumor board—especially in light of recent advances made with chemotherapy, according to Michael J. Cavnar, MD.

The addition of eganelisib (IPI-549) to nivolumab (Opdivo) was found to elicit encouraging responses and improve progression-free survival (PFS) compared with single-agent nivolumab in patients with platinum-refractory, immunotherapy-naïve, advanced, metastatic urothelial cancer, according to an update from the phase 2 MARIO-275 (NCT03980041).

Nurses should be careful of the words that they choose – around patients and other providers.

The FDA has granted fast track designations to cavrotolimod (AST-008) for use in combination with a PD-1 therapy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) that is refractory to previous PD-1 blockade and for use in combination with a PD-1/PD-L1 agent in those with advanced or metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) that is refractory to previous PD-1/PD-L1 blockade.

Nurse navigation – in addition to a better EHR system – increased the percentage of older patients who utilized advance care planning.

The reversible BET inhibitor CC-90010 was found to have preliminary antitumor activity in patients with heavily pretreated, advanced solid tumors and relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The FDA has approved a supplemental new drug application to add overall survival (OS) and other secondary end point data from the phase 3 ARAMIS trial (NCT02200614) to the prescribing information for darolutamide (Nubeqa) for the treatment of patients with nonmetastatic prostate cancer (nmCRPC).

Molecular testing is a critical component of the treatment selection process in lung cancer, as a host of effective drugs have since been developed to target alterations such as ALK, ROS1, and RET, according to Yujie Zhao, MD, PhD, who added that the integration of RNA-based sequencing into these strategies could potentially provide further benefit to patients.

An immunotherapy agent recently had its FDA approval pulled from the American market. But this may not be as bad as it sounds, experts say.

Recent research found that there may be a correlation between opioid use and pancreatic cancer risk.