With care shifting to outpatient delivery and the increased availability of evidence-based support services, cancer care and survivor support has greatly evolved during the past 25 years, according to ONS member Carlin Callaway, DNP, MS, RN, ACNP-BC, ACNS-BC, AOCNP®, assistant professor and lead medical oncology advanced practice provider at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and member of the ONS Metro Denver Chapter, in a June 2022 public-facing blog post for the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Cancer.Net website.
On September 2, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved durvalumab (Imfinzi®) in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic biliary tract cancer.
To support the objectives of President Joe Biden’s relaunched Cancer Moonshot initiative, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded $215 million to three national cancer programs in June 2022. The funds are part of a $1.1 billion investment in cancer prevention and control.
The clinical trials that lead to new drug approvals or expanded indications are quick to praise a therapy’s clinical benefits, such as longer survival or time to progression, but only about one in five of those trials find improvements in patients’ quality of life, researchers reported in JAMA Oncology.
Coordinating survivorship care plans is an integral part of cancer care. When the Froedtert and Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Network experienced challenges in implementing survivorship care plans, it created a brand-new medical role—survivorship data coordinator—to “initiate case findings for eligible patients, track patients completing treatment, notify physicians and advanced practice providers to populate the survivorship care plan, and schedule survivorship care plan appointments.”
Survivors need support to resume a high-quality, healthy “new normal” life after they complete their treatment. The services of a cancer survivorship clinic or program may help them manage the physical and emotional implications involved with ongoing care.
Hope is an essential element of the human experience, a belief for positive outcomes both today and in the future.
On August 26, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved pemigatinib (Pemazyre®) for adults with relapsed or refractory myeloid or lymphoid neoplasms with fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 rearrangement.
On August 29, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported Intera Oncology’s recall of the Intera 3000 hepatic artery infusion pump because of reports that the devices were delivering medications faster than expected. FDA identified it as a class I recall, the most serious type of recall, where use of the device may cause serious injuries or death.
A person’s zip code often matters more than their genetic code when it comes to their health. Where we live and work, how connected we are in our community, and how much support we have are core social determinants of health that also significantly affect cancer health outcomes.