Articles

Dessie Brown, LPN, works with a lot of cancer patients and loves doing it because she is able to help them in a unique way. Brown has been diagnosed with breast cancer twice, first in 1992 and then again in August 2009. This Feb ruary she finished her last round of chemotherapy.

Despite their demanding jobs, Patricia Irouer Hughes, RN, MSN, BSN, OCN, and her colleagues on the oncology unit of Piedmont Healthcare in the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area find time to volunteer in their community. "We are a special breed even though we cannot all be Florence Nightingale or Clara Barton," she says. Service learning or volunteerism was one of the requirements for acquiring her MSN degree from Regis University in Colorado, in keeping with the school motto "Men and Women in Service of Others."

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has identified six opioid products that will require Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS). Advanced practice nurses (APNs) who want to continue prescribing opioids will need to follow several new practices, according to an educational presentation by Marilyn Haas, PhD, RN, CNS, ANP-BC, nurse practitioner for palliative and supportive care at Care Partners in Asheville, North Carolina.

A medical center's redesigned lung cancer management protocol decreased both the time to diagnosis and the time from diagnosis to actual treatment to less than 20 days, according to a new study.

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) remains common despite the availability of new antiemetic agents and the development of clinical guidelines by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Oncology.^1-3 It is estimated that 70% to 80% of patients who receive chemotherapy experience CINV; approximately 10% to 44% experience anticipatory nausea and vomiting. Read More ›

In the past 12 months, patient navigation, specifically the role of oncology nurse navigators, has become of increased interest in the cancer community. Although the concept of patient navigation dates back to the early 1990s, the most recent surge surrounding this evolving area of patient care, as well as the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, has further solidified the growth of this movement in the US healthcare system.

The evolving epidemiology statistics relative to breast cancer world wide are alarming. The cumulative incidence of breast cancer is 6.3% in developed countries compared with 1.0% in undeveloped countries. Western developed areas show increasing rates, with projections of 2 million cases diagnosed annually.

Advances in understanding of the causes of breast cancer, epidemiology, risk factors, and both maturing data and new findings on hormonal, cytotoxic, and biological approaches were presented at the 32nd annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Multiple myeloma (MM), although currently incurable, has seen significantly improved response and overall survival (OS) rates with the inclusion of targeted therapy in its treatment schema. MM therapy has evolved greatly over the past several years and, with innovative research and medications, this disease may soon be curable. This article will focus on the novel agents revolutionizing therapy of MM.

In the first head-to-head comparison of targeted oral tyrosine kinase inhibitors as initial treatment for early-stage chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), molecular and cytogenetic remissions were more common with nilotinib compared with imatinib, the previous standard for treating early-stage CML, said Giuseppe Saglio, MD.