From The Editor

In the March issue of The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA (TON), we feature a profile of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Survivorship Program, Boston, which is a new and unique initiative specifically designed to improve the lives of patients who have undergone BMT. The program features several unique components that address the various aspects of BMT survivorship, and is open to patients who are ≥1 years post-BMT.

“Our goals are to provide high-quality survivorship care, conduct innovative research specific to BMT survivorship, and improve the quality of life and care of BMT survivors, their families, and caregivers,” said Julie Vanderklish, NP, co-leader of the BMT Survivorship Program, in an interview with TON.

This issue also features a wealth of articles on survivorship that address a variety of patient populations and resources; topics include the use of Internet-based patient-reported outcomes tools to determine late- and long-term effects of cancer among survivors of lower gastrointestinal cancers, and the potential for eLearning technology to help address gaps in provider education with regard to the care of cancer survivors.

We also feature key presentations from the 2017 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer, and the American Association for Cancer Research International Conference on New Frontiers in Cancer Research.

At the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, Brendan Guercio, MD, resident physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, referred to the results of his recent study and told attendees that daily moderate physical activity can improve outcomes in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

“Individuals walking 4 or more hours per week had a greater than 20% improvement in overall survival,” reported Dr Guercio.

At the World Conference on Lung Cancer, Marianne Davies, DNP, RN, CNS, ACNP, AOCNP, Assistant Professor, Yale University School of Nursing, and Thoracic Oncology Nurse Practitioner, Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center, New Haven, CT, highlighted the importance of rapidly diagnosing and treating immune-related adverse events in patients with lung cancer.

“Most patients have complex comorbidities in these cases, so the first rule of thumb is to rule out other causes of adverse events. And, in many cases, it’s a diagnosis of exclusion, unless you have biopsy-confirmed immune-related adverse events,” Dr Davies told attendees.

At the Conference on New Frontiers in Cancer Research, Bridget Oppong, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Division of Breast Surgery, Georgetown University Hospital of Surgery, Washington, DC, discussed ethnic variations in breast density and breast cancer risk in a cohort that included black and Hispanic women.

“As there is a paucity of reporting on mammographic density in minority women, these data presented are valuable, especially as we are able to have a comparison group of whites,” Dr Oppong and her co-researchers said.

Finally, this issue of TON features articles that provide insights on using multigene panel testing for patients with early-onset colorectal cancer; prophylactic use of a steroid mouth rinse to decrease the incidence of stomatitis in patients being treated with mTOR inhibitors; and how duloxetine can be used to improve chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in patients with pancreatic cancer.

As always, we hope you will enjoy this issue of TON and look forward to receiving your feedback. You can contact us via e-mail at info@TheOncologyNurse.com.