A mainstay of many cancer treatments for decades, 5-fluorouracil injection package inserts were updated in March 2024 through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Project Renewal. The revisions add pharmacogenomics information and a safety warning about severe adverse reactions in patients with DPD deficiency. 

In response to the ever-changing practice of cancer care, in May 2024, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and ONS released updates to their administration safety standards to provide clarification and guidance for oncology healthcare professionals. Here’s what you need to know about the changes as an oncology nurse.

A template-based standardized ambulatory oncology nurse orientation process substantially reduced turnover rates at a large academic comprehensive cancer center, ONS member Christina M. Matousek, MSN, RN, OCN^®, reported in an article in the June 2024 issue of the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing. Additionally, the standardized training ensured new nurses built consistent, disease-specific experience across 17 different interprofessional disease teams.

The rapid advancements in oncology treatments—with new approvals in therapies like small molecules, biologics, biosimilars, and cellular therapies coming nearly every month—can be challenging for any nurse to keep up with, let alone truly understand the nuances of those approvals. As new discoveries unfold, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees the lengthy and multifaceted journey a drug or biologic takes from the laboratory to the patient. The ultimate goal of the many steps is to balance providing access to the latest treatments with ensuring patient safety.

On February 16, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte cancer therapy for metastatic melanoma, lifileucel (Amtagvi™). Patients in the drug’s clinical trial experienced a significant decrease in tumor burden, and the median overall survival was 17.4 months.