This issue of The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA (TON), continues our coverage of the news from the recent Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) 39th Annual Congress and the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). At ONS, Anne Katz, RN, PhD, a clinical nurse specialist at CancerCare Manitoba, discussed how cancer and its treatments can affect a patient’s sexuality. She notes that sexuality is an important part of a patient’s quality of life, but that studies show that this issue is rarely brought up with patients. Katz says that the interval between cancer diagnosis and treatment initiation presents an opportunity for nurses to assess how patients view their current sex life and how important sexuality is to them, and to prepare patients about what to expect. This is a subject we should all be prepared to discuss with our patients. Katz gives us some guidelines on how to best approach this subject. Our continuing ASCO coverage includes highlights of a few of the many presentations from the meeting. We also present coverage from the recent annual meeting of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology. Mario Lacouture, MD, discussed treatment-induced alopecia and hair adverse events. Lacouture notes that patients are often very overwhelmed by hair loss and that some patients consider it the most traumatic effect of chemotherapy—47% of breast cancer patients surveyed said this, with 8% of these patients saying they would reject chemotherapy because of alopecia alone. Alopecia is the topic of our new reader poll. See below for information about going online to our website, www.TheOncologyNurse.com, to answer the question and provide your comments. While on the TON website, be sure to review the content and tell us what you like and don’t like. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to hearing from you.
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