From the Editor - TON April 2019

TON - April 2019, Vol 12, No 2
Beth Faiman, PhD, APRN-BC, AOCN
Founding Editor in Chief

The April issue of The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA (TON) is filled with important news and insights for today’s oncology nurse. We begin our coverage with a profile of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, as we speak with Sandra Rome, RN, MN, AOCN, Hematology/Oncology/BMT Clinical Nurse Specialist, who discusses her commitment to caring for patients with cancer, her roles and responsibilities as part of the Blood & Marrow Transplant team, some of the challenges she and her colleagues face in their day-to-day jobs, and why she finds her work so rewarding (learn more).

“It gives me tremendous satisfaction to be directly involved in patient care. I find it so rewarding to be at our patients’ bedsides, where I can offer support to them as well as to their families. The transplant process is very complex and can be challenging to them on many levels—physically, financially, mentally, and emotionally. I do my best to use my skills and knowledge to help them through the process,” she said.

This issue of TON continues its focus on the treatment of hematologic cancers with coverage of the 2018 ASH annual meeting, including presentations on promising new drugs and combination regimens.

In an important session on immunotherapy in multiple myeloma, investigators discussed the latest data from clinical trials evaluating the potential of emerging CAR T-cell therapies, including preliminary results from a phase 1 trial of bb21217 (learn more).

“Responses are deepening over time. The first patient continues in response more than 1 year later. We saw 100% [minimal residual disease] negativity in 4 of 4 responders,” said the study’s lead investigator, Nina Shah, MD, Hematology and Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinic, University of California, San Francisco.

We also delve into the “hot topic” of financial toxicity in oncology, including a look at recently reported findings from a multicenter retrospective cohort study that examined how the setting of autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation can affect not only provider reimbursement but patients’ out-of-pocket expenses as well (learn more).

“Single center studies have shown that outpatient transplant may cost less and have comparable outcomes to inpatient transplant, so we wanted it to examine this in greater detail,” said Neil Dunavin, MD, MHS, Assistant Professor, Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapeutics, University of Kansas Medical Center, Westwood, when discussing the rationale for conducting the study.

Other valuable information you will find in this issue of TON includes clinical trial results on novel approaches to the treatment of myelodysplastic syndromes (learn more) and high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma (learn more); an overview of some of the challenges facing older individuals with cancer and how nurses and other members of the healthcare team can facilitate communication and improve adherence to treatment in this population (learn more), and the potential role of DNA repair targeted therapy in expanding treatment options in select types of malignancies (learn more).

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.

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