Managing toxicities and adverse events (AEs) so that patients can continue to stay on effective treatments is essential to improving outcomes. Catherine Hill, BSN, RN, OCN^®, Margaret Blaney, RN, BSN, Ashley Layton, BSN, RN, OCN^®, and Kaddie Lopez, BSN, RN, OCN^®, PHN, discussed ways to manage and prevent symptoms in cancer care during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

Ibrutinib is a first-in-class, once-daily inhibitor of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase. In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ibrutinib for the treatment of adult patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) after failure of one or more lines of systemic therapy.

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T-cell) therapy has become an integral part of the advancement of lymphoma and other cancer treatments. However, educational resources and available published literature are still lacking for oncology and intensive care nurses.

Electronic health records (EHRs) can offer so much more than a way to keep all processes and procedures linked to a patient. Christina Boord, BSN, RN, OCN^®, and Cori Kopecky, MSN, RN, OCN^®, discussed electronic health records, patient data, and outcomes during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

Advanced practice nurses (APNs) are creating new and innovative programs that educate patients and help them live better, healthier lives. Lorraine Drapek, DNP, FNP-BC, AOCNP^®, Geline Joy Tamayo, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, OCN^®, TTS, Suzanne McGettigan, MSN, CRNP, AOCN^®, ANP-BC, and Edward Bentlyewski, MSN, APN, NP-C, AOCNP^®, discussed their experiences with APN-run clinics and program implementation during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

Staying updated on advancements in cancer care increases the chances of improved outcomes for patients. Cara Henderson, RN, BSN, CMSRN, patient service manager of surgical oncology at Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven, CT; Elizabeth Rodriguez, DNP, RN, OCN^®, nurse leader of outpatient services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY, Amanda Choflet, DNP, RN, OCN^®, director of nursing in radiation oncology at Johns Hopkins Health System in Baltimore, MD, and Megan Howe, MSN, RN, OCN^®, nurse manager of Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, discussed the factors that relate to improving outcomes, the multidisciplinary approaches to the process change strategy, and the results and future direction of chosen pathways during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

As precision oncology continues to expand, so does the ability to use less-toxic targeted therapies. James Chen, MD, assistant professor of biomedical informatics and assistant professor of internal medicine at the division of medical oncology at Ohio State University in Columbus, described his work with genomics in cancer care and the challenges in precision medicine at the 43^rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

An estimated 266,120 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 40,920 related deaths will occur in the United States in 2018. Patients with distant disease have a poorer five-year relative survival rate (26.9%) compared with localized (98.9%) and regional (85.2%) disease. HER2+ breast cancer accounts for approximately 20%–25% of all breast cancer diagnoses, and this type of breast cancer is more common in younger women, decreasing in frequency with age across all stages.

If it seems like a new oncology drug or indication comes to market every month, you wouldn’t be wrong. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a record number of oncology agents in 2017 and 2018. Teresa Knoop, MSN, RN, AOCN^®, assistant director of clinical operations at the Clinical Trials Shared Resource at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, TN, gave an update on the latest therapies during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

As the opioid abuse epidemic prevails in the United States, patients with cancer can be affected. Yu-Ping Chang, PhD, RN, FGSA, associate dean for research and scholarship in the School of Nursing at the University at Buffalo in New York, and Tonya Edwards, MS, MSN, BSN, FNP-C, a nurse practitioner of supportive care at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, discussed how the opioid epidemic affects patients and how to identify and prevent opioid and substance abuse during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

During the State-of-the-Science Lecture at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, Jane Fall-Dickinson, PhD, RN, AOCN®, of Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies, discussed chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), specifically its oral cavity complications. She presented challenges, clinical data, and goals for improving its treatment and management options.

Catherine Bender, PhD, RN, FAAN, of the University of Pittsburgh, and Amy Hoffman, PhD, RN, of Michigan State University, shared their experiences in building interdisciplinary research teams to assess symptom management during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

Margaret Bevans, PhD, RN, AOCN®, FAAN, program director and clinical nurse scientist at the National Institutes of Health’s Nursing Research and Translational Science department, detailed her own journey and empowered nurses to amplify their impact during her Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial lecture at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

During the American Association for Cancer Research/ONS Bench to Bedside session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, Victor Velculescu, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Maura Kadan, RN, MSN, of Personal Genome Diagnostics, dissected the science behind precision oncology, including an understanding of genetic alterations, the use of immunotherapy, and how to advance survival with these clinical breakthroughs.

During a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, various speakers discussed the latest findings in patient safety.

During a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, various speakers discussed symptom management and supporting patient needs.

Immunotherapy is becoming an important role in cancer care and having an understanding of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) is critical for oncology nurses to provide safe and effective patient care. Rowena Schwartz, PharmD, BCOP, of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, discussed strategies for managing these AEs during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

Geographic location impacts life expectancy and even cancer care. Marylynn Ostrowski Ireland, PhD, of Viability, Inc., and Deborah Watkins Bruner, PhD, RN, FAAN, of Emory University in Atlanta, GA, discussed geographic health disparities during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

The development of targeted therapies brought new progress to lung cancer treatment and research in the past 20 years, and new options will continue to be available in the future. Roy Herbst, MD, PhD, director of thoracic oncology research program at the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT, spoke at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, on new standards of care for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), immunotherapy for NSCLC, and development of rational drug combinations using biomarkers.

As the opioid crisis continues in the United States, helping patients find effective and safer ways to manage their pain becomes increasingly important. During a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, Jeannine Brant, PhD, APRN, AOCN^®, FAAN, of Billings Clinic in Montana, instructed nurses on ways to treat cancer-related pain and discomforts other than (or in addition to) narcotic pain medicines.

Speakers discussed nurse-led initiatives to improve patient care during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

During a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, various speakers discussed their work in providing quality health care to vulnerable patient populations.

Nurses can foster data-powered health through getting involved in research and ensuring that data collection is in patients’ best interest and accessible to all. Patricia Brennan, PhD, RN, director of the National Library of Medicine, and Suzanne Bakken, PhD, RN, FAAN, a professor at Columbia University, discussed how data can empower health and what nurses can do to advance research during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

Kathleen McDermott, RN, BSN, OCN®, BMTCN®, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and coauthors presented the background for axicabtagene ciloleucel’s approval and nursing best practices for managing patients receiving CAR T-cell therapy during a poster session at the ONS 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

Keynote speaker Lee Tomlinson, founder of the C.A.R.E. Effect, discussed his journey from cancer survivor to patient advocate, calling for compassionate care and thanking nurses for being the reason he is alive today, during the opening session at the 43^rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, on Thursday, May 17, 2018.

Professional incivility, rudeness, and bullying are not new to the world of nursing. Nurses can see escalated teasing or bullying as “a rite of passage” or “earning our stripes.” However, changes in the workplace have shown that no matter what it’s called, bullying and professional incivility has no place in the working environment. Anne Ireland, MSN, RN, AOCN®, CENP, clinical director of the Solid Tumor Program at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, CA, and Tracy Gosselin, PhD, RN, AOCN®, NEA-BC, chief nursing and patient care services officer at Duke University Hospital in Durham, NC, gave a lecture at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC, on their work with professional incivility and bullying and ways to teach nurses how to intervene and become powerful bystanders.

It’s hard to imagine life without social media, even though the active use of it is less than 15 years old. People use social media to stay connected to family and friends, for information on communities, and more. And although social media is most often used as a personal outlet, it has become much more prevalent in the professional realm as well.

Many programs at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) are focused on cancer research, and support for cancer- and treatment-related symptoms and toxicities crosses a number of National Institutes of Health (NIH) organizations. Martha Matocha, PhD, program director and team lead of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), and Ann O’Mara, PhD, RN, FAAN, program officer at NCI, provided tips and opportunities for nurses and how they can conduct or participate in cancer research programs during a session at the 43rd Annual Congress in Washington, DC.

The healthcare landscape is changing more rapidly than ever, and daily discoveries in genomics are leading to truly individualized care. During a session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO, David Solit, MD, Geoffrey Beene Chair and director of the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), reviewed cutting-edge genomics science, its role in precision medicine, and innovative genomics programs at his institution. Solit leads a research program that seeks to identify new drug targets using genomic profiling.

“This has been a historic year in oncology pharmacology,” Rowena Schwartz, PharmD, BCOP, associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, told the audience during a session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO. “There were new drugs, yes, but we’re really learning how to use the drugs that we have.”

Quality of life (QOL) is a complicated construct and has been defined many ways. Barbara Anne Biedrzycki, PhD, CRNP, AOCNP^®, of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, presented the following view: “Quality of life is achieved when our hopes are matched and fulfilled by our experiences.” She encouraged participants to have a holistic perspective of QOL but to keep in mind that QOL is very individualized—its definition and meaning are different to each individual, and each person finds some factors to be more important than others.

Carole Elledge, DNP, RN, AOCN^®, clinical program specialist at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, TX, described the concept of nursing competencies with a kitchen metaphor: “It’s kind of like baking a cake. If you’re going to bake a cake, you need all the ingredients.” For nurses, she said, the ingredients of competency include not only hands-on clinical skills, but also an ability to see past the disease, compassion, critical thinking, self-motivation, patience and insight, leadership, a team approach, and more. “There’s much more to competency than just skills.”

During a session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO—on what happened to be National Nurses Day—the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) asked nurses to consider joining an initiative intended to gather, collate, and disseminate massive amounts of data to enhance evidence-based cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Nurses and patients know that nursing care makes a difference. During a session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO, David Rice, PhD, RN, NP, director of professional practice and education at the City of Hope National Medical Center, encouraged nurses to take strides to prove it by using benchmarks and data.

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) is an adverse event (AE) associated with cancer therapies that healthcare providers often underestimate. CINV can interfere with treatment compliance and adherence, and patients who experienced CINV in the first cycle of chemotherapy are almost four times more likely to experience it during subsequent treatment cycles.

When an oncology nurse becomes a patient with cancer, the experience can shed light on the cancer journey and help other nurses comprehend what their patients go through. During a session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO, as part of the annual Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial Lectureship, Patricia Jakel, RN, MN, AOCN^®, an advanced practice nurse at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center and an associate professor in the UCLA School of Nursing, shared her journey, describing the terror that comes with diagnosis, the frequent unsupportive social interactions, and the symptom burden.

More than 130,000 new cases of colorectal cancers (CRCs) are diagnosed in the United States each year, representing 8% of all new annual cancer cases. The rate of patients with CRC surviving more than five years is 65.1%; however, patients with metastatic disease (mCRC) have a poorer prognosis, with only 13.5% surviving more than years. As many as 40% of patients with mCRC remain candidates for third-line therapy, with some patients requiring up to five lines of therapy because of drug resistance.

Each year, the ONS Board of Directors sponsors a session at the ONS Annual Congress on a particularly important, high-impact topic. During a session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO, the leadership chose the up-and-coming nursing role of care coordination and transition management.

Poor cognitive function can cause distress, impact quality of life, and contribute to treatment non-adherence, Catherine Bender, PhD, RN, FAAN, from the University of Pittsburgh, explained during the Distinguished Nurse Researcher session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO. She is the 2017 recipient of the Distinguished Nurse Research Award, which recognizes the contributions of a member who has conducted or promoted research that has enhanced the science and practice of oncology nursing.

Advanced practice nurses (APNs) play a role in leadership, policy development, education, and management. As APNs move through their career from novice to expert, ONS can play a large role in professional development.

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) can lead to serious adverse events (AEs) for older adults that could result in hospitalizations. Older adults may be overwhelmed with the amount of information involved with diagnosis and treatment, may not believe their actions will have an impact on symptoms, and tend to adopt a “wait and see” approach to managing AEs. Educational initiatives that tailor symptom management to older adults are necessary to engage and prepare these patients to self-mange CINV at home.

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a persistent, subjective sense of tiredness related to cancer and treatment that interferes with usual functioning. Other features of CRF include tiredness that is not relieved by rest or sleep, is often associated with physical and psychological symptoms, can be acute or chronic, and may not correspond to a patient’s level of exacerbation.

Medical marijuana laws still vary across the United States, and barriers persist for patients and providers, including fear of addiction and side effects as well as safety, financial, and legal concerns. Carey Clark, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, of the University of Maine at Augusta, Jacquelyn Bainbridge, PharmD, FCCP, from the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Lisa Kennedy Sheldon, PhD, APRN-BC, AOCNP^®, FAAN, chief clinical officer at the Oncology Nursing Society, discussed the latest in medical marijuana laws and usage during a session at the 42nd Annual Congress in Denver, CO.