Zhang is a 67-year-old man who had no history of medical concerns until he was hospitalized for pneumonia. A complete blood count taken during his workup for pneumonia showed pancytopenia, and a biopsy confirmed a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia. After multiple rounds of induction therapy, Zhang's bone marrow biopsy showed minimal residual disease and he entered remission. His oncologist recommends an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant as soon as possible because of the disease's aggressive nature, but he has no match in the registry.
Regardless of care setting, oncology nurses must be vigilant about creating a safe environment for and educating patients about the importance of infection prevention. Patients with cancer are at increased risk for viral, bacterial, and fungal infections, but the extent depends on cancer type and treatment.
Nurses are a trusted resource for patient education and offer clarity during a crisis, whether it’s a cancer diagnosis or global pandemic. However, in a survey from the American Nurses Association (ANA), 30% of nurses said they have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, and a quarter of that percentage was still undecided about getting vaccinated. The two main reported reasons were fear of short- and long-term side effects (66%) and lack of information about the vaccines (50%). ANA’s new campaign educates nurses about those concerns.
Reduced adherence to recommended screening and prevention relates to a lack of knowledge and barriers like inadequate insurance, low engagement with primary care, time constraints, and misconceptions about risks of screening or their individual risk of developing cancer. We must do a better job of educating people about cancer screening and linking them to affordable or free services.
Having diabetes increases a person’s risk for developing leukemia, lymphoma, or multiple myeloma—and their risk for dying from the cancer should it occur, researchers reported in Diabetologia.
More nurses are diagnosed with the COVID-19 coronavirus than healthcare providers in any other discipline. Despite that sober statistic, very few congressional committees’ COVID-19 legislation proposals support essential workers like nurses. U.S. Representatives Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Joe Neguse (D-CO) introduced a bill to address those concerns.
To increase access to breast and cervical cancer screening, U.S. Congress passed the Breast and Cervical Cancer Mortality Prevention Act of 1990, which led to the creation of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP). Because of NBCCEDP, eligible women who are low-income, underserved, and underinsured receive free breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic testing.
The CHEK2 (checkpoint kinase 2) tumor suppressor gene provides cells with instructions for making a protein known as CHK2, which becomes active when the cell’s DNA is damaged or strands of it break. CHEK2 halts cell division and enables either cell repair or destruction. Without a properly functioning CHEK2 gene, cells lose a key restraint on their growth which may lead to uncontrolled cells and possibly malignancy. CHEK2*1100delC is the most common pathogenic variant and most prevalent in European populations.
The Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan (APR) is the largest, single piece of legislation focused on economics since Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed in his New Deal programs to pull the United States out of the Great Depression. Sweeping in scope, two of APR’s goals are to make health care accessible for all and to create formal plans for addressing racial disparities.
On March 22, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) for use in combination with platinum- and fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy for patients with metastatic or locally advanced esophageal or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) (tumors with an epicenter 1–5 cm above the gastroesophageal junction) carcinoma who are not candidates for surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation.