Search Results for "Oncologic Emergencies 101:"

“A couple of things I think are really important when you look at this class of drug: It developed by a concerted effort in cancer drug development to look at new agents that would be effective based on the mechanism. And then once they found a drug in this class that was beneficial, they further modified it to try to get better efficacy and less toxicity,” Rowena “Moe” Schwartz, PharmD, BCOP, FHOPA, professor of pharmacy practice at James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the nitrosoureas drug class.

 “The search for daunorubicin’s sister really led to this discovery of doxorubicin, which is an analog with much greater activity. The discovery of doxorubicin can be coined kind of as, ‘one of the best drugs born in Milan, Italy.’ And after that, a few analogs were developed and tested, and two that we currently use today, are idarubicin and epirubicin,” Puja Patel, PharmD, BCOP, clinical oncology pharmacist at the Delnor Hospital Northwestern Medicine Cancer Center in Geneva, IL, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a discussion about anthracyclines and other antitumor antibiotics. This episode is part of a series about drug classes, which we’ll include a link to in the episode notes.

“I can't stress enough how often I get questions about, ‘Is this the paclitaxel doing this? Is this the docetaxel doing this?’ And coming up with strategies to kind of help get our patients through with supportive care is important. It's a really big opportunity for pharmacists and our nurses to really provide it and help our patients get through and show the knowledge that we have and to help them,” Dane Fritzsche, PharmD, BCOP, oncology informatics pharmacist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and University of Washington Medicine in Seattle, WA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a discussion about the plant alkaloid drug class.

“One of the things that’s really challenging with these BRAF inhibitors, plus MEK inhibitors, is that there’s a huge scope of potential toxicity, and they’re not all going to happen. So I think that there’s a real need to educate patients that they need to work with us so that when a toxicity develops, we can help address it. We can help think of strategies, whether it be medication strategies or whether it be other types of strategies, to make them feel better,” Rowena “Moe” Schwartz, PharmD, BCOP, FHOPA, professor of pharmacy practice at James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the BRAF inhibitor drug class.

“A lot of the efforts have been made to improve the patient experience for these treatments, as they can be given for years at a time. For example, when leuprolide debuted way back in 1985, it was a daily injection. But four years later, they developed the monthly depo formulation. Now we have formulations that are approved for administration once only every three, four, and even six months,” Andrew Ruplin, PharmD, clinical oncology pharmacist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the luteinizing hormone–releasing hormone (LHRH) antagonist and agonist drug classes.

“I think we’re in a scientific golden age for prostate cancer and probably cancer as a whole, but we’re talking about prostate cancer today. So I’m excited to be sitting on the front lines, seeing the new ways that we can help our patients. But I do still think CYP17 inhibitors will continue to be one of our main weapons against prostate cancer for a very long time,” Andrew Ruplin, PharmD, clinical oncology pharmacist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the CYP17 inhibitor drug class.

“Estrogen plays a key role in promoting the proliferation of normal and breast cancer epithelium. So now we have gone from focusing just on the estrogen to also look at estrogen receptors on breast cancer cells and targeting that—and now even to a point of looking at the downstream effects of when the estrogen binds to estrogen receptor of those signaling pathways,” Rowena “Moe” Schwartz, PharmD, BCOP, FHOPA, professor of pharmacy practice at James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about estrogen-targeting anticancer therapies. 

“The things that I think creep up are things that unfortunately are quite common, and that’s hot flashes. I’ve had patients say that those are just overwhelming, and they want to go off therapy because of it. So I think talking about pharmacologic management, as well as lifestyle management, of hot flashes, are equally as important,” Rowena “Moe” Schwartz, PharmD, BCOP, FHOPA, professor of pharmacy practice at James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about androgen receptor inhibitor and antiandrogen drug classes.

“Transfusion safety is really a registered nurse activity, and I just continue to reiterate the blessing of nursing assessment, getting those vitals before the transfusion, and then monitoring them closely and stopping the transfusion if they have a reaction, because that’s really an assessment, and we can’t delegate that to nonlicensed staff. And so that’s really why we just celebrate that nurses have such a great role in transfusion safety,” Renee LeBlanc, BSN, RN, manager of the infusion services office at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, BMTCN®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about administration of plasma and cryoprecipitate.

“At the beginning, like when you first meet someone before they’ve even started anything, kind of get a baseline of ‘What’s your ability to complete your daily activities? How is your coordination? How’s your speech now? How is your writing ability?’ up front before we start anything that could be toxic. And then prior to every treatment, I tend to look at their gait, watch them walk in or walk out of the office, to see if they’re changing at all,” Colleen Erb, MSN, CRNP, ACNP-BC, AOCNP®, hematology and oncology nurse practitioner at Jefferson Health Asplundh Cancer Pavilion in Willow Grove, PA, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, BMTCN®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about central nervous system toxicity.