Search Results for "Immunotherapy"

Randi is a 57-year-old patient who identifies as female. She was diagnosed with clear cell metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), and her past medical history includes mild hypertension managed with amlodipine and a two-year history of transient musculoskeletal pain managed with tramadol. She reports a family history of cardiovascular disease and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Her primary care physician suspects Randi is at the beginning stages of fibromyalgia but has not made a conclusive diagnosis because she hasn’t experienced additional symptoms.

Combination treatment with an oncolytic virus plus a PD-1 inhibitor shows promise in patients with nonmelanoma skin cancers, researchers reported in early study results during the 2022 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.

“Just like with anything we do in oncology, a lot of education is required. Nurses and coordinators are critical to start the education and provide effective resources that are reinforced throughout the treatment,” ONS member Beth Faiman, PhD, MSN, APN-BC, AOCN^®, BMTCN^®, FAAN, FAPO, advanced practice provider at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS^®, BMTCN^®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about how to address knowledge gaps and barriers to practice regarding patients who are preparing for or who have received CAR T-cell therapy for hematologic malignancies. Faiman was one of the content experts for two ONS focus groups on the topic in March 2023.

Rapid advancements in the science of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies present unique challenges and opportunities related to patient care. Nurses are at the forefront of those advancements—contributing to practice guidelines, developing center-specific protocols, publishing outcomes and best practices, and researching the patient experience, outcomes, and supportive interventions.

Before immunotherapies like immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) became a cancer treatment option, myocarditis typically developed in the presence of infections, drug allergies, or autoimmune diseases. Activating the immune system with ICIs can also trigger autoimmune-like adverse events such as myocarditis, and although its incidence in patients with cancer is low, mortality is high.

In August 2021, ONS brought together 17 oncology nurses to discuss their experiences with immuno-oncology, precision oncology, and nurse navigation. The goal was to assess their understanding of and identify gaps related to precision oncology and the role of the nurse navigator. This clinical update summarizes the findings of the focus group proceedings.

ONS member Marianne Davies, DNP, ACNP, AOCNP^®, FAAN, nurse practitioner at the Smilow Cancer Center at the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center and associate professor at the Yale University School of Nursing, both in New Haven, CT, and member of the Central Connecticut ONS Chapter, joins Stephanie Jardine, BSN, RN, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, to discuss how oncology nurses can safely administer pembrolizumab immunotherapy and manage its associated adverse events. This episode is part of an ongoing series about outpatient oncology drug infusion. The others are linked in the episode notes. The advertising messages in this episode are paid for by Breast Cancer Index. 

Scientists created a new cancer immunotherapy approach that uses a new type of CAR T cells to stimulate an immune response against cells that are missing one gene copy. They reported their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nearly a quarter of patients receiving a variety of drugs classified as immune checkpoint inhibitors develop infections during treatment and 15% are considered severe, researchers reported in study findings published in Cancer Medicine.

Since the first checkpoint inhibitor was approved in 2011, we have made tremendous leaps in immunotherapy in a short span of 10 years. Now we see immunotherapy combined with a variety of options, including chemotherapy or other oral and IV targeted therapy.