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Case Presentation
Chief complaint: Abdominal pain and weight loss for 3 months.

ORLANDO—A study of physicians from five countries found that nurses and hematologists counseling patients with chronic myeloid leukemia about the importance of adherence to prescribed tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) or having an established adherence protocol, such as medication diaries, pill organizers, or informational calendars, was associated with im proved adherence, and those patients who took the drugs as prescribed had significantly better therapeutic milestones.

SAN ANTONIO—Researchers are reporting “woefully inadequate” mammography rates in American women, even in those with healthcare coverage.

Milayna Subar, MD, National Practice Leader, Medco Oncology Therapeutic Resource Center in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and colleagues analyzed medical claims data obtained in more than 1.5 million women between 2006 and 2009. All of the women had health insurance through their employer or Medicare.

What started as tumor board conferences a decade ago has grown into a true multidisciplinary team approach to comprehensive breast care. ProHealth Care’s Center for Breast Care at Waukesha Memorial Hospital’s Regional Cancer Center in Waukesha, Wisconsin, is an interdisciplinary breast cancer clinic where patients can see multiple specialists in one visit. With the opening of the clinic, the various specialists involved in patient care can talk to each other about a patient in real time, not replacing tumor board conferences, but taking patient care to the next level.

To help patients cope with terminal illness, healthcare providers must imagine themselves in the place of these patients, according to Tami Borneman, MSN, CNS, a research specialist at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California.

In a presentation at the sixth annual Oncology Congress, she coaxed her audience to pretend their own deaths were imminent. “I really want us to take in what it’s like to be a person receiving bad news,” she said.

Healthcare workers need such exercise es, because communicating bad news is really difficult, she said.

A master’s level oncology specialization program prepares nurses with the clinical, cultural sensitivity, and research skills they will need to deal with issues impacting underrepresented minorities. Read More ›

Cancer is a disease for the entire family to survive, whether in terms of emotional hurt or the provision of concrete physical care. And alongside partners, spouses, and friends, many survivors care for young children. Kathryn E. Weaver, PhD, of Wake Forest University School of Medicine and her fellow researchers estimate that 1.58 million US cancer survivors live with minor children, totaling 2.85 million young people in all (Cancer. 2010; 116:4395-4401). Read More ›

ORLANDO—Computed tomography (CT) scanning and blood tests to determine tumor markers are very important in the follow-up of stage I nonseminomatous testicular cancer (NSTC), but the physical examination is of limited value, according to new research presented in a poster session.

ORLANDO—Most nurses who care for patients with cancer are at risk for compassion fatigue and burnout and may leave the profession as a result, according to a new survey.

ORLANDO—Nurse practitioners are in an ideal position to assess whether nonurgent emergency department patients are undergoing recommended mammography for breast cancer screening, a new study has found.

“Even though they know that breast cancer is a serious disease, many women are still not being screened with mammography,” said Karen Paraska, CRNP, PhD, assistant professor of nursing at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during her poster presentation.