In the August issue of The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA (TON), we feature a variety of articles aimed at informing and empowering nurses, navigators, and advanced practice providers who work to improve the lives of patients with cancer.
We begin this issue with an interview with Alessandra Alvarez, BSN, BHSA, OPN-CG, Patient Navigator, Head and Neck and Endocrine Cancers, Miami Cancer Institute at Baptist Health South Florida, who discusses the essential role that navigators play in assisting patients throughout their cancer journey, the wide array of services available at her center, some of the rewards and challenges of her job, and the importance of achieving a healthy life/work balance (see here).
This issue of TON also includes the latest coverage from national and international oncology meetings, where experts presented key data on treatments shown to extend survival for patients with various types of malignancies, and discussed initiatives underway to promote more equitable cancer care.
During the Opening Session of the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, ASCO President Everett E. Vokes, MD, announced the theme for the meeting, which focused on advancing equitable cancer care through innovation (see here).
“In oncology, innovation can be seen around every corner. Opportunities range from new therapies and smarter use of existing treatments, and offering patients broader and easier access through telemedicine, to rethinking clinical trial eligibility and much more,” he said.
In another noteworthy session at ASCO 2022, Shanu Modi, MD, presented results from the phase 3 DESTINY-Breast04 clinical trial, which demonstrated an encouraging survival benefit with the antibody–drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) in the treatment of patients with HER2-low unresectable or metastatic breast cancer (see here).
During the 2022 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, Fred Saad, MD, FRSC, discussed promising findings from the phase 3 PROpel study, which showed the advantage of combining the PARP inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) with abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, regardless of homologous recombination repair status (see here).
This issue also features safety and efficacy data from clinical trials evaluating novel therapies that are improving outcomes in patients with difficult-to-treat malignancies, including renal-cell carcinoma (see here) and non–small-cell lung cancer (see here), as well as findings from a recent analysis revealing treatment disparities in patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic (see here).
We also provide readers with an overview of recent FDA approvals for a variety of anticancer drugs, as well as an important new safety warning for duvelisib (Copiktra), an agent used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma.
As always, we hope that you will enjoy this issue of TON, and we invite you to visit www.TheOncologyNurse.com to share your feedback with us. You can also send an e-mail with any questions or comments you may have to info@TheOncologyNurse.com.
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