News

Each month, we take a look back at the most popular Oncology Nursing News® stories. Here are the top 5 stories from November 2020.

The FDA has approved the Sonalleve MR-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MR-HIFU) system for the treatment of patients with osteoid osteoma in the extremities.

Following the approvals of tisagenlecleucel (tisa-cel; Kymriah) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel; Yescarta), several research efforts have been dedicated to the development and exploration of CAR T-cell therapies in the realm of leukemias and lymphomas, according to Olalekan O. Oluwole, MBBS, MD, who added that although this modality has moved the needle forward, this approach is not without toxicity.

The advent of 3D printing has led to an exciting revolution in limb salvage surgery for patients with bone tumors and soft tissue sarcomas, and have resulted in more precise resection and high-fidelity reconstruction, according to R. Lor Randall, MD, FACS.

Nurses are much more than “doctors’ helpers,” and now the world is starting to see that.

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to naxitamab-gqgk (Danyelza) for use in combination with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor as a treatment for pediatric patients 1 year of age and older and adult patients with relapsed/refractory high-risk neuroblastoma in the bone or bone marrow who have demonstrated a partial response, minor response, or stable disease to prior treatment.

The clinical trial planned to evaluate the targeted agent will focus on patients with relapsed/refractory clear cell sarcoma.

Tebentafusp (IMCgp100) showed superiority in overall survival (OS) compared with investigator’s choice of therapy in patients with previously untreated metastatic uveal melanoma, according to results of a preplanned interim analysis of the phase 3 IMCgp100-202 trial (NCT03070392).

To understand the impact of the pandemic, I asked clinical nurses to describe the 2020 The Year of the Nurse and Midwife in a few words. Everyone was eager to give a statement and many, many were very prideful for the nursing care done in 2020.

With additional JAK inhibitors under exploration in the myelofibrosis pipeline, such as momelotinib and pacritinib, FDA-approved options continue to be utilized heavily in the paradigm, explained John O. Mascarenhas, MD.

Some states are allowing nurse practitioners to practice without physician oversight – an act that is long overdue, according to the AANP president.

Patients from Asian countries with hormone receptor (HR)–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer may have a higher risk of disease recurrence than those from non-Asian countries, suggesting that this population may benefit from additional adjuvant treatment with abemaciclib (Verzenio).

Pathology is the cornerstone of precision medicine, explained Marilyn M. Bui, MD, PhD, who added that, as a whole, the health care specialty needs to step it up in the diagnosis of sarcomas and the differentiation between the various histological subtypes.

The combination of plinabulin and pegfilgrastim (Neulasta) showed a statistically significant improvement in the rate of prevention of grade 4 neutropenia versus pegfilgrastim alone in patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy.

Nurses are signing an online petition for a nurse to be a member of the COVID-19 task force.

The FDA has granted a fast track designation and an orphan drug designation to the orally bioavailable small molecule tubulin-binding agent PTC596 for potential use in patients with leiomyosarcoma; the agent also received a rare pediatric disease designation and an orphan drug designation for potential use in patients with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).

November 18, 2020 - The FDA has granted a fast track designation to the BTK inhibitor rilzabrutinib for the treatment of patients with immune thrombocytopenia.

AV-GBM-1, a personalized cancer vaccine, demonstrated an improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma, according to data from a phase 2 trial (NCT03400917).

Cemiplimab (Libtayo) demonstrated clinically meaningful antitumor activity, including durable responses, and acceptable safety in patients with metastatic basal cell carcinoma (mBCC) after progression on or intolerance to hedgehog inhibitors.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) treatment has entered an era that is both exciting and challenging, according to Nilofer S. Azad, MD, who emphasized that as new strategies continue to be explored, treatment decisions should be informed by tumor location, the alterations present, and tolerability.

The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) elicited an objective response rate (ORR) of 25% and was found to be well tolerated in patients with advanced or unresectable angiosarcoma, according to cohort findings of the phase 2 DART trial (NCT02834013) that were presented during the virtual SITC 2020 Annual Meeting.

Patients on active therapy during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, as well as oncology care providers, have increased levels of perceived and posttraumatic stress, according to preliminary data from the COVIPACT study. These data highlight a gap in psychosocial support resources that help promote emotional resilience and reduce the risk of posttraumatic stress in patients on active therapy.

The FDA granted an accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus chemotherapy for the treatment of patients with locally recurrent, unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) with PD-L1 expression is CPS ≥10, according to the agency.

Durvalumab showed a promising survival boost in stage III non-small cell lung cancer, and the immunotherapy agent was not as toxic as some thought it would be.

In an effort to further improve outcomes without sacrificing tolerability, the combination of cabozantinib (Cabometyx) with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is being evaluated in patients with advanced melanoma in a phase 1b/2 study (NCT03957551), according to a virtual presentation during the 2020 SITC Annual Meeting.

A clinical trial nurse discussed the different roles of health care providers when conducting a clinical trial.

An immunologist and oncologist, Merad has spent her career studying inflammation in patients with cancer and was at the right place at the right time to translate her expertise to examine inflammation in patients with COVID-19.

A pharmacist provides an overview of new intravenous cancer therapies that were approved in 2020.

Subgroup analyses from the phase III CheckMate-067 trial identified potential biomarkers in patients who achieved a complete response (CR) with the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) but later progressed, according to Georgina V. Long, BSc, PhD, MBBS, FRACP.1 Now, investigators are working to answer more questions about this group of patients.

A nurse practitioner discusses mutations, cancer sidedness, and treatment duration for patients with colorectal cancer.