The National Comprehensive Cancer Center Network (NCCN) has released a statement imploring health care employers to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations among their employees. 

Because patients with cancer are known to be more susceptible to experiencing complications from COVID-19, and certain populations may not mount an effective immune response to vaccination, the NCCN COVID-19 Vaccination Advisory Committee stated that it was “incumbent on healthcare workers” to be vaccinated against the virus.

“Cancer care providers have a responsibility to their patients and colleagues to do everything they can to reduce the spread of COVID-19; that includes getting vaccinated,” Robert W. Carlson, MD, chief executive officer of the NCCN, stated in a press release. “We know [patients with cancer] already face a higher risk from COVID-19 and must be protected during their many interactions with healthcare workers. According to the science, vaccines are our best option to safely protect ourselves and the people around us from this potentially deadly disease.”

Although the vaccination of healthcare workers will not serve to prevent all exposure to SARS-CoV-2, it confirms that the community is doing everything possible to protect more patients from infection. Moreover, many institutions have been reported to have experienced transmission clusters among healthcare workers during the pandemic, despite mitigation efforts.

For example, 3 clusters of COVID-19 infections among healthcare workers that were not associated with patient exposure were identified at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

 Investigators defined a “cluster” as 2 or more cases of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare workers who worked in the same unit at the same time.

The initial cluster involved works from an ancillary services unit, with contacts traced back to a gathering in a break room in which 1 employee was symptomatic but not yet diagnosed with the virus. Subsequently, 7 employees were infected with COVID-19. The second cluster was comprised of 4 employees and was determined to be community related. The third cluster involved 2 employees with possible transmission while working in the same office at the same time.

The institution implemented a step-up approach to control infection spread among employees. This included universal masking, stronger cleaning practices, increased awareness, and the implementation of surveillance testing.

According to the committee, these kinds of events can have a significantly negative impact on healthcare systems.

FDA approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

 (previously referred to as BNT152b2; Comirnaty) for use in the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals aged 16 years or older.4 The vaccine has been available for emergency use in this population since December 11, 2020,5 and the authorization had been expanded to include individuals between the ages of 12 years and 15 years, as of May 10, 2021.6

FDA granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine

 to prevent COVID-19 infection in individuals aged 18 years or older.7 The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine also received EUA from the regulatory agency in February 27, 2021, for the same indication.8

In January 2021, the NCCN issued guidance that stated that all patients with active cancer, or with active, recent, or planned cancer treatment, should be considered highest priority to receive 1 of the COVID-19 vaccines granted for emergency use.9

In the event of limited vaccine supply, the NCCN specified that patients with active cancer who were on treatment including those on hematopoietic and cellular therapy; those planning to initiate treatment; and those who received treatment less than 6 months ago, be among the first to receive vaccination. Patients who were receiving hormonal therapy were the only exception to this recommendation.

Data from a recent study have demonstrated that COVID-19 vaccination induced high rates of seroconversion in patients with cancer, although those with hematologic malignancies have showcased lower immunogenicity and those who received prior immunosuppressive therapies appear to be less responsive.10

These data indicate that most patients with a cancer diagnosis have a high chance of responding to vaccination, even those who were receiving active treatment with chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or immunotherapy. As such, investigators concluded that the findings underscore the continued need to vaccinate patients with cancer urgently and broadly.

“We’re deeply committed to doing everything to protect our patients from COVID-19,” Brahm Segal, MD, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, co-leader of the NCCN COVID-19 Vaccination Advisory Committee, stated in a press release. “Our patients come to our centers for high-quality and cutting-edge cancer care. We must insist they are protected as much as possible from COVID-19 during medical visits, and this requires that our workforce be immunized.”

Cancer guidelines organization supports mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for health workers. News release. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. August 19, 2021. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

National Comprehensive Cancer Network vaccine statement. August 19, 2021. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

Ariza-Heredia EJ, Frenzel E, Cantu S, et al. Surveillance and identification of clusters of healthcare workers with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): multidimensional interventions at a comprehensive cancer center. 

. 2021;42(7):797-802. doi:10.1017/ice.2020.1315

FDA approves first COVID-19 vaccine. News release. August 23, 2021. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

FDA takes key action in fight against COVID-19 by issuing emergency use authorization for first COVID-19 vaccine. News release. FDA. December 11, 2020. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: FDA authorizes Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in adolescents in another important action in fight against pandemic. News release. FDA. May 10, 2021. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

FDA takes additional action in fight against COVID-19 by issuing emergency use authorization for second COVID-19 vaccine. News release. FDA. December 18, 2020. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine authorized by US FDA for emergency use – first single-shot vaccine in fight against global pandemic. News release. Johnson & Johnson. February 27, 2021. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

NCCN shares new guidance principles for vaccinating people with cancer against COVID-19. News release. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. January 22, 2021. Accessed August 23, 2021. 

Thakkar A, Gonzalez-Lugo JD, Goradia N, et al. Seroconversion rates following COVID-19 vaccination among patients with cancer. 

. 2021;39(8):1081-1090.e2. doi:10.1016/j.ccell.2021.06.002

Articles

An official statement has been signed and issued by the National Comprehensive Cancer Center Network insisting that health care systems mandate COVID-19 immunizations for their workers

NCCN Issues Statement, Insists on Mandatory COVID-19 Immunization for Health Care Workers

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected patients with cancer, explained Chastity M. Washington, MPH, CHES, director at the Center for Cancer Health Equity, The University of Ohio Comprehensive Cancer Center, James Cancer Hospital.

Washington presented on Cancer Health Equity in the COVID-19 Era at 

. In an interview with Oncology Nursing News®, Washington provided a brief introduction to how the pandemic specifically affected different populations of patients with cancer.

Her presentation at the meeting highlighted “the impacts of the pandemic, on those disparities, on the social determinacies of health on the health care system itself, the differences we’ve seen in cancer patients with covid, the impact of some of the preventative things related to cancers, such as screenings, there were delays in getting preventative screenings, there were delay in diagnostics, there was also a brief period of time when some of the clinical trials were shut down. So, how all those things impact cancer patients in general, but then also how they have sort of an extra impact those vulnerable minority, economically disadvantaged populations that we serve.”

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“There were delays in getting preventative screenings, there were delay in diagnostics, there was also a brief period of time when some of the clinical trials were shut down.”

The COVID-19 Pandemic Disproportionately Affects Patients with Cancer

Oncology nurses taking care of patients treated with immunotherapy can ensure they continue to receive this therapy and lower hospitalizations by remaining diligent in suspecting and detecting immune-related adverse events (irAEs), said Grace Cherry, RN, MS, NP, UCLA melanoma program, during a presentation at the 5th Annual School of Nursing Oncology meeting.

“If you're an oncology nurse, you will have patients with immunotherapy–which is why we want to make sure that we are really familiar with these side effects,” Cherry emphasized.

IrAEs are currently unpredictable. They can appear at any time, in any organ or tissue. There are currently no markers to indicate which patients will have a reaction, although it is suspected that those who are autoimmune are at greater risk.

Common irAEs include fatigue, dermatitis, colitis, endocrinopathies, hepatitis, and pneumonitis. However, there are also rare irAEs that can occur, such as neurological, hematological, cardiac, musculoskeletal, and renal symptoms. Cherry urges oncology nurses to always “be suspicious.”

“I would like to invite for you to be that person who will be suspicious. Be that person who will [ask]: Is this an immune related adverse event?” encouraged Cherry. “And report it… because if it is [an irAE] we can treat them with prednisone, and the expectation is that it will get better.”

The primary principle of irAE management is early diagnosis. For this to be possible, patients must be taught to communicate any change they experience.

Communication, communication, communication,” stressed Cherry. “We have to let them know how to communicate to us if they're having symptoms. Do they know who to call? Do they have a phone number? Do they know to call on the weekend if they’re having a cough or profuse diarrhea?

The second step is to rule out other causes. IrAEs are unpredictable and difficult to diagnose, so Cherry advises involving other specialists with different instruments and training whenever possible. For example, if a patient experiences blurry vision, it is important to call an ophthalmologist, because they can look inside the eyeballs and provide a truly thorough evaluation.Using an interdisciplinary team is often the best way to receive early and accurate diagnoses.

Cherry also emphasized the importance of understanding common terminology criteria for adverse event (CTCAE) because it provides clinicians with a common language. Generally, immunotherapy can be continued with frequent monitoring as long as the AE is grade 1.

Grade 2 indicates that immunotherapy should be held, and symptoms managed. If symptoms are improved to grade 1, the therapy can continue. Glucocorticosteroids are recommended at 0.5–mg/kg per day if symptoms persist beyond 5 to 7 days.

If symptoms are not improved with use of steroids and worsen to a grade 3, not only should immunotherapy be held, but the glucocorticosteroids dosage should be increased to 1 to 2 mg/kg per day and hospitalization should be considered.

If the irAE reaches grade 4, therapy should be discontinued, and the patient should receive urgent intervention.

There are currently 7 FDA approved immunotherapies. Anti-PD-1 therapies such as nivolumab (Opdivo), pembrolizumab (Keytruda), and cemiplimab (Libtayo), are generally much better tolerated than anti-PD-L1 drugs like atezolizumab (Tecentriq), avelumab (Bavencio), and durvalumab (Imfinzi), or the anti-ctla-4 therapy, ipilimumab (Yervoy).

The standard treatment for irAE is systemic steroids therapy; 0.5 to 2 mg/kg/d of prednisone or equivalent should be administered in either IV or oral form, depending on the severity, and should be tapered gradually over the next 4 to 6 weeks. Various literature suggests that the use of steroids does not impact the efficacy of the immunotherapy, said Cherry.

If steroid therapy does not induce a positive response within 2 to 3 days, the next step is usually an immunosuppressant. Guidelines recommend infliximab for colitis, mycophenolate for hepatitis, and an antifungal prophylaxis for pneumocystis.

Prednisone can affect glucose levels, so blood sugar should be monitored when administering that steroid. In addition, PP1 and H2 blockers are recommended to prevent gastritis, while vitamin-d and calcium are encouraged to prevent osteoporosis.

Cherry reminded nurses that irAEs are treatable. She recounted how gratifying it feels as an oncology nurse to successfully catch and manage an irAE and allow a patient to continue treatment.

As an example, she recalled a patient who was successfully treated for their adrenal insufficiency with 20mg hydrocortisone twice a day and was consequently able to continue their monthly monotherapy of nivolumab.

“I have to say personally, it's really gratifying when we catch patients with adrenal insufficiency, because.. they look so sick, and they feel horrible, but when we properly diagnose, and give the supplement of hydrocortisone, symptoms immediately get better. So, it's really, really gratifying. But even more gratifying than that is they continue to take therapy that is lifesaving.”

Some patients receiving immunotherapy are apprehensive to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, the NCCN has stated that patients with cancer respond well to messenger RNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and should continue to be prioritized for immunizations. Exceptions include patients who have received stem call transplant, cellular therapy, major surgery or have acute leukemia.

Both the NCCN and the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer have patient geared resources for understanding immunotherapy. Furthermore, both the NCCN and ASCO release regularly updated immunotherapy management guidelines for clinicians.

Cherry also urges that patients use immunotherapy wallet cards and that families and caregivers be incorporated in the symptom management process. Any change from baseline should be reported right away.

“Communication is the key. Communication with patients. Communication with other health care providers. Early reporting is so important, make sure your patients know who to call, how to call, how to report symptoms. Let them know what their baseline is. If it's anything different, report it to us. Our job is to figure out is this immune related or not… So, we continue to give these treatments safely, so that our patients can continue with their life saving treatments.”

Cherry G. Management of Immune Related Adverse Events (irAE). Presented at: 5th Annual School of Nursing Oncology; August 6-7, 2021; Virtual.

“If you're an oncology nurse, you will have patients with immunotherapy–which is why we want to make sure that we are really familiar with these side effects.”

Immunotherapy Related AEs Are Manageable with Nurse Intervention

“Smarter screening” strategies may play a crucial role in helping Latina and Black women survive breast cancer at the same rates as their White counterparts, according to a presenter at the 

 School of Nursing Oncology virtual conference.

During her presentation, Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, MD, FACP, OON, American Cancer Society clinical research professor at the University of Chicago’s Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics & Global Health, stressed the need to better understand how breast cancer affects Latina and Black women to improve their survival outcomes following treatment.

“We want to make sure we can provide the right treatment for the right patient at the right time,” explained Olopade. “Then, we can keep our families healthy…what we're looking for in preventive oncology, we can do in the clinic and we can also do it in the population. [We] identify individuals who have already had cancer as a way for us to reach their family members.”

Olopade told the attendees that screening has been an effective tool at reducing breast cancer deaths. However, in her research, Black women in and around the Chicago, Illinois area get screened at rates higher than the national average, yet still have poorer outcomes than White women — even though patients achieve pathologic complete responses at similar rates.

Over time, she said she has learned from genomic assays that breast cancer is not simply one disease but is made up of several different ones. Furthermore, she noted how she has learned that screening for early detection of breast cancer should no longer be age based.

“What we learned from Chicago is that Black and Brown women, and in fact, all young women who get breast cancer under the age of 14, are the ones that are having the worst disparity. In all other cancers, older women tend to do worse,” she said. “We suddenly say, ‘Everyone starts screening at 40,’ [but] there are some women who would have had breast cancer that would have the potential to kill them before they ever get that first mammogram.

“So that’s why we're going away from talking about age-based screening to begin to say, ‘Let us personalize screening.’ Let us all figure out what exactly we are at risk for. Are we at risk for a ‘cheetah’ type of cancer? Or are we at risk for a ‘snail’ type of cancer that grows very slowly?”

Patterns of Inherited Breast Cancer in Black Women

Olopade has studied patterns of inherited breast cancer women in Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Brazil, and among Black women in the United States. Those data, along with findings from the CARRIERS study which included 32,247 women with breast cancer and 32,544 controls, show that 

 are the most important genes for assessing breast cancer risk in this patient population. Black women who harbor these genes develop cancer are almost 15 years younger at diagnosis on average compared with White women who carry the same pathogenic variants.

“These are women who get breast cancer at a very young age. So that’s why we cannot use a one-size-fits-all [approach], and then say, ‘Oh, but you know, 

 are not important.’ They are important. It all depends on your population. When you test 1000 cases and 1000 controls in Nigeria and you have almost 12% of them showing up with a mutation in

, you’re going to focus on that as an intervention for cancer control.”

Determining a patient’s individual risk is challenging, in part because Black women tend to be underrepresented in clinical trials in the United States and abroad. Genomic testing for precision risk assessment will transform cancer care, Olopade said.

“We can’t just take what is being shown in White women and then expect it to work for Indian women, expect it to work for Asian women, expect it to work for women from Africa,” she added. “So, what is the heterogeneity? What is it that we need to do for Black and Brown women?”

This is where investigators need to go beyond race and ethnicity, she said. Physicians can use data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to develop a polygenic risk score (PRS), which is calculated for an individual based on the presence or absence of risk variants identified in large GWAS studies. PRS can provide better insight than traditional risk models, especially in these populations. The model can estimate risk for a Black or Brown woman based on the proportion of African ancestry in her DNA.

“We can now identify women who are in the top percentile, [representing] 5% of women who have a risk that is actionable before the age of 50. If we can find those women before the age of 50, or even if we can…can really track them [and] counsel them, and then we can put them on a screening, that is going to be different because they are at risk for [estrogen receptor]-negative breast cancer, [and] I think that will really help the field. We’re talking about deescalating—not just using more and more treatment. We have to deescalate in what we're doing for early detection. We have to use innovations.”

Olopade OI. Retooling precision oncology for true equity of cancer care. Presented at: 5th Annual School of Oncology Nursing; August 6-7, 2021; virtual.

Hu C, Hart SN, Gnanaolivu R, et al. A population-based study of genes previously implicated in breast cancer. 

. 2021;384(5):440-451. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2005936

This article was originally published on OncLive as, “

Smarter Screening, Risk Assessments Are Key to Eliminating Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Outcomes

“We want to make sure we can provide the right treatment for the right patient at the right time,” says Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, MD, FACP, OON. 

 Personalized Screenings are Needed to Address Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Outcomes 

Multicancer early detection (MCED) tests demonstrated a strong capacity for delivering accurate and specific cancer signal origin (CSO) predictions across various tumor types. These results suggest that MCED tests should be included as a complement to existing single-cancer screening tests.

Specifically, data from The Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas Study (CCGA; NCT02889978), published in 

 showed that cancer signals were detected across more than 50 tumor types and that the MCED tests demonstrated a specificity for cancer signal detection of 99.5% (95% CI, 99.0%-99.8%). The overall sensitivity for cancer signal detection was 51.5% (n = 1453/2823; 95% CI, 49.6%-53.3%) and the sensitivity of the tests increased with disease stage; sensitivity for stage I disease was 16.8% (95% CI, 14.5%-19.5%), 40.4% (95% CI, 36.8%-44.1%) for stage II, 77.0% (95% CI, 73.4%-80.3%) for stage III, and 90.1% (95% CI, 87.5%-92.2%) for stage IV.

Overall, the accuracy of CSO prediction in true positives was 88.7% (95% CI, 87.0%-90.2%).

Investigators also reported that the MCED test demonstrated a cancer signal detection sensitivity of 40.7% (95% CI, 38.7%-42.9%) in an analysis was conducted in a cohort of patients with 12 prespecified cancers which account for approximately 66% of annual cancer deaths annually in the United States. Specifically, this cohort included patients with either anal, esophageal, lung, pancreatic, bladder, head and neck, stomach, ovarian, liver/bile duct, and colorectal cancers, as well as lymphoma and plasma cell neoplasms.

Further, an analysis of patients with stage I-III disease showed that the sensitivity of cancer signal detection with the MCED tests was 67.6% (95% CI, 64.4%-70.6%).

“Finding cancer early, when treatment is more likely to be successful, is one of the most significant opportunities we have to reduce the burden of cancer,” Eric Klein, MD, the chairman of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at Cleveland Clinic, said in a press release from ESMO.

 “These data suggest that, if used alongside existing screening tests, the multicancer detection test could have a profound impact on how cancer is detected and, ultimately, on public health.”

Widespread detection of cancer prior to stage IV disease could reduce cancer-related deaths by more than 15% within 5 years. Five single-cancer screening tests available for use in the United States for detection of breast, colorectal, cervical, lung, and prostate cancers, which account for 42% of annual cancer incidence rates. The use of cancer screening tests have contributed to the reduction of cancer-specific mortality, however, they are associated with high rates of false positives, over-diagnosis, and over treatment.

MCED tests represent a potential new approach to detecting signals for multiple cancer types by utilizing cell-free DNA (cfDNA) or other circulating analytes in the blood shed by tumors. As such, CCGA study investigators sought to develop and utilize a MCED test to detect cancer signals across multiple cancer types, as well as predict CSO with just a single blood draw.

From August 2016 and February 2019, this prospective, multi-center, case-control, observational study with longitudinal follow-up, enrolled 15,254 patients from 142 sites in North America. The study was then divided into 3 prespecified sub-studies that included a discovery cohort, a cohort that examined training and validation with the selected and updated assay and classifiers, and clinical validation cohort, reported here.

Patients eligible to enroll on the study were those 20 years and older, who received a diagnosis of cancer and/or were scheduled to undergo biopsy or surgical resection for a confirmed or highly suspected malignancy. Those who had previously undergone chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or definitive local therapy were not eligible to enroll.

The primary end point of the sub-study was to evaluate MCED test performance for cancer signal detection, CSO prediction, and the rates of both combined. Key secondary end points included test performance by age group, test performance for cancer signal detection by method of cancer diagnosis, and test performance for cancer signal detection in a prespecified group of 12 cancer classes.

In total, 5309 patients were enrolled on the third sub-study, 4077 of whom were included in the analysis. Of the evaluable patients, 2823 had a confirmed cancer diagnosis, and 1254 did not have a cancer diagnosis. The most common reasons for exclusion from the analysis were incomplete 1-year follow-up for noncancer participants (n = 324), presence of nonmalignant conditions at enrollment (n = 283), and unconfirmed cancer or treatment status at blood draw (n = 171).

Patients had a mean age of 60.6 years, and a majority were female (55.4%) and White (81.2%). Among patients with a confirmed cancer diagnosis, most presented with stage I or stage II disease (54.9%).

“These data add to a growing body of literature that supports the use of next-generation sequencing for the detection of cell-free DNA in blood samples as a tool for earlier detection of common cancers that account for a significant number of deaths and other health problems worldwide,” Klein said. “In addition, a screening test that requires only a simple blood draw could provide an option for communities that have poor access to medical facilities.”

Klein E, Richards D, Cohn A, et al. Clinical validation of a targeted methylation-based multi-cancer early detection test using an independent validation set. 

. Published online ahead of print June 23, 2021. doi:10.1016/j.annonc.2021.05.806

Blood test for early detection of cancer: final study results support screening use. News release. European Society for Medical Oncology. June 25, 2021. Accessed June 25, 2021. 

This article was originally published on OncLive as 

“Blood-based Test Shows Promising Accuracy in Detecting Cancer-Signal Across Multiple Tumor Types”

Multicancer early detection tests provided specified and accurate cancer signal origin detection across more than 50 tumor types. 

Blood-Based Tests Should Be Included in Single-Cancer Screenings

An ongoing four-year study based out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Carbona Cancer Center seeks to determine the best way to improve colorectal cancer screening rates in rural areas.

“Our goal is to learn from the clinics that are doing it correctly and doing well and see if we can take their strategies and help disseminate them to lower-performing health care settings that have similar access to resources, similar patient populations,” said lead researcher Dr. Jennifer Weiss, a gastroenterologist at the UW Carbone Cancer Center and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.



Researchers will survey, tour and interview at more than 200 rural primary care clinics in the upper Midwest. They’ll use early data showing which clinics are high performing (having successfully screened 80% or more eligible patients) to then identify common best practices at those clinics. They also plan to examine the potential causes or barriers leading to lower screening rates at certain clinics.

Weiss said that during her time as a gastroenterologist, she has seen a number of cases where a patient received a colorectal cancer diagnosis that could have been prevented with appropriate or timely screening.

“I think one of the things that people don't understand is we can actually prevent colorectal cancer,” she said. “Most people talk about breast cancer screening – with breast cancer screening, we're trying to identify a breast cancer at the earliest stage possible. With colorectal cancer screening, we can actually identify the precancerous lesion, which is a colon polyp, and take it out before it turns into a cancer.”

Weiss became more interested in health care system- and patient-level interventions to address screening issues. She and fellow researchers began their work in 2008, studying whether multilevel interventions at a large academic health center in a midsize city would help increase screening rates.

“We were able to increase our screening rates over 20% so that we’ve maintained over 80% screening rates for the last five years” Weiss said. “But I started to realize that what we were doing here at an academic health center might not be immediately applicable or transferable to other types of health care settings.”

As Wisconsin has a large rural community, Weiss set out to find a way to translate the lessons they’d learned from the 2008 study to rural clinics. The research is funded by a $1.2 million grant from the American Cancer Society in partnership with the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality.

Though the researchers won’t know for sure until the study is complete, Weiss hypothesizes that one reason that certain rural clinics have not been able to achieve adequate colorectal cancer screening rates may be due to lack of regular access to care.

“Or they access care only for urgent or immediate concerns and are not really doing that yearly preventive exam where there’s time to sit down and talk about the prevention strategies that they can do to help with their health care,” Weiss said.

She added that in many places, regardless of being a rural or urban setting, there’s a difference in how colorectal cancer screening is portrayed and talked about by primary care providers in terms of what tests are available.

“In the United States, we talk a lot about colonoscopy,” said Weiss. “And as a gastroenterologist, I definitely agree colonoscopy is a great colon cancer screening test. But there's also data to show that offering multiple types of screening tests is one way to increase colon cancer screening rates.”

Patients in rural settings may have decreased access to providers who perform colonoscopies due to distance, she explained. However, their providers could explain or offer another reasonable alternative, such as an at-home stool test. This is also a more affordable option than a colonoscopy, which is significant considering that a lack of insurance coverage may be another reason preventing these patients from getting screened.

“I think there's also just issues potentially about this sensitive topic,” said Weiss. “So ideas about talking about a colonoscopy with your provider or with family members may not be felt to be appropriate, or people might have a bit of a stigma about colorectal cancer. Especially if their doctors are really only talking about colonoscopies. So, I think that the discussion needs to be had, I think people really need to talk about their family history. They need to find out who else in their family has had colon cancer, because that increases their potential risk.”

This article was originally published on Cure® as “

New Initiative Explores How to Increase CRC Screening Rates in Rural Areas

Novel research at University of Washington aims to improve the rate of colorectal cancer screenings in rural America. 

New Strategies Aim to Expand Preventative CRC Screenings in Rural America

Presented findings from the 36th Annual European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress showed that urologic care experienced a significant decline throughout the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite varying stay-at-home order mandates, all demographic groups and practice settings in the United States reported similar findings.

Notably, declines of more than 40% were observed among outpatient visits from March 2020 to April 2020. Although outpatient visits recovered through May 2020 and early June 2020, they began to fall again in July 2020 in the overall population.

“This study provides timely, real-world evidence on the magnitude of decline in the provision of urological care across demographic groups and practice settings, and demonstrates a differential impact on the utilization of urologic health services by sociodemographic strata and specific diagnoses,” Daniel J. Lee, MD, MS, an assistant professor of urologic oncology in the Department of Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-authors wrote.

Non-urgent visits, including visits for microscopic hematuria, overactive bladder, elevated prostate-specific antigen, erectile dysfunction, and benign prostatic hyperplasia, also declined, as did procedure visits.

Non-urgent visits declined by 39% to 47% from March 2020 to April 2020, whereas visits for urgent diagnoses declined by 29% to 43%. Surgical procedures for non-urgent conditions declined by 37% to 53% compared with surgical procedures for potentially urgent matters, which declined by 13% to 21% during the evaluated time period.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected facets of health care access and delivery, including hospital admissions and outpatient care for certain conditions, throughout the United States, wrote Lee and co-authors. However, the significance of the pandemic with regard to specialty care had not been fully realized, which provided the clinical rationale to conduct the analysis.

The specialty-wide, community-based cohort study evaluated trends in outpatient urologic care visits, as well as procedural volume from February 2020 to July 2020. The study utilized the American Urological Association Quality (AQUA) Registry, which automatically extracts patient data from electronic health records.

AQUA collects data from 157 urology practices, which comprise 3,165 providers. Notably, these providers account for approximately one-fourth of all urologists in the United States, wrote Lee and co-authors. The practices are spread across 48 states and territories in the United States.

The trends were evaluated based on patient, practice, and local or regional demographic and pandemic response features.

Primary outcomes included mean visit volume and procedure volume-per-week, which were compared with the respective weeks in 2019.

Overall, 2,750,001 patients were included in the cohort, which comprised 8,953,832 outpatient visits and 1,570,161 procedures.

The decrease in visits was smaller among African American and Hispanic patients compared with Asian and Caucasian patients; however, African American and Hispanic patients experienced a slower recovery in visits to baseline.

Patients insured by Medicare, most of whom were over the age of 65, observed the steepest reduction in visits at 50%. Additionally, 84.4% of patients insured by Medicaid, most of whom were low-income patients, did not recover to the baseline number of weekly visits before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, among practices located in areas with lower median incomes, higher poverty levels, and lower urologist-to-population rations experienced smaller decreases in outpatient visits.

Lee DJ, Shelton JB, Brendel P, et al. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urologic care delivery in the United States. Presented at: 36th Annual EAU Congress; July 8-12, 2021; Virtual. Abstract P0183.

“Urologic Care Rates Decline Across US Demographics During Height of COVID-19 Pandemic”

The impact of the pandemic in regard to specialty care remains to be fully realized. 

Urologic Care Rates Decrease Throughout Climax of COVID-19 Pandemic   

The World Health Organization estimates that 30% to 50% of cancer cases are preventable, and usually people think this means modifying health behaviors such as not smoking tobacco, maintaining a healthy body weight, getting regular physical activity, limiting alcohol, and eating a healthily.

But there are additional ways to prevent cancer, including risk-reducing surgical procedures, screening, and early detection that remove precancerous lesions before they develop into cancer, or medical interventions such as chemoprevention.

As an oncology nurse working with people who have been diagnosed with cancer, you might not feel that cancer prevention is part of your practice. After all, you might be hanging their chemotherapy, managing their adverse events from radiation therapy, or helping them prepare for their surgical resection. But an oncology nurse can play an incredibly important role in cancer prevention as the patient moves across the cancer continuum.

For example, a woman I worked with as a breast oncology nurse navigator was newly diagnosed and developing a surgical plan for a lumpectomy. She confided that she didn’t understand why this was happening to her since no women had ever been diagnosed with cancer in her family. She had recently learned a few males in her family had been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer but hadn’t thought to share this with the oncology team. As an oncology nurse, I understood that metastatic prostate cancer is part of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network criteria for genetic testing,

 and I coordinated with her health care provider a referral for genetic counseling. Her genetic testing came back positive for the BRCA2 pathogenic variant and she felt very overwhelmed when her surgical oncologist recommended bilateral mastectomies.

We discussed the importance of preventing breast cancer in the contralateral breast and connected her to social support services. She did decide to have the bilateral mastectomies.

Later when she was completing her treatment and entering the survivorship phase, we discussed her health care provider’s recommendation for a risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy since she had an increased risk of ovarian cancer with the BRCA2 pathogenic variant. In the survivorship care plan, we discussed how colonoscopy and the Pap test are cancer screening tests that can remove precancerous lesions before they develop into cancer.

We also addressed cancer prevention for her family members by coordinating appointments for them with the genetic counselor.

Oncology nurses can talk to their patients about cancer prevention in the treatment phase as well as the survivorship phase. As trusted members of the health team, nurses are in a unique role to educate patients and their family members on cancer prevention and risk reduction strategies.

 World Health Organization. Accessed December 22, 2020. 

https://www.who.int/activities/preventing-cancer

2. National Cancer Institute. Cancer prevention overview (PDQ)-Health professional version. October 7, 2020. Accessed December 20, 2020. 

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/hp-prevention-overview-pd

3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Genetic/familial high-risk assessment: Breast, ovarian, and pancreatic (version 2.2021)

https://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/pdf/genetics_bop.pdf

4. Cancer screening tests. National Cancer Institute. January 16, 2019. Accessed December 26, 2020. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/screening/screening-tests

Oncology nurses can play a key role in the prevention of certain cancers.

Oncology Nurses Can Help Prevent the Preventable

Monumental strides in cancer treatment have been made in recent years, though there is still far more work to be done when it comes to cancer screening and diagnostic procedures, according to the American Cancer Society’s “Blueprint for cancer research: critical gaps and opportunities.”

“With only 4 of the 20 most common cancer types in the United States having a proven screening method to reduce mortality by identifying early-stage lesions, developing such tools for other high-incidence malignancies is urgently needed,” the 

The American Cancer Society worked with experts in the field to establish research opportunities that could lead to the development of better screening approaches in the future. They included:

Better understanding the molecular makeup of early-stage cancer and premalignant disease

Determining how the tumor microenvironment leads to the transition of premalignant to preinvasive to invasive disease

Creating better technologies for screening, early detection, and risk stratification

Improving the ways that biomarkers are analyzed and detected with a limited amount of fluid

Establishing how public health genomics can affect precision public health when it comes to cancer screening and earlier detection

Find ways to use artificial intelligence or machine learning and next-generation technologies (wearable devices, etc) to help in cancer screening and early detection.

Despite the existence of these major gaps, there have still been significant strides in diagnosing cancer and better understanding the disease biology.

For example, thanks to the advent of liquid biopsy, patients can undergo a blood test that provides vital information about circulating tumor cells, free tumor-derived DNA or RNA and cancer-derived exomes.

“A liquid biopsy offers many advantages over a traditional biopsy,” the report says. “It is minimally invasive, not generally limited in terms of sample accessibility and availability, and practical for repeat sampling, which could help clinicians during screening and surveillance as well as postdiagnosis to better understand the molecular changes occurring in a tumor over time.”

Additionally, every year researchers learn more about cancer biomarkers, and these discoveries continue to serve as the backbone for more personalized, efficacious cancer treatment.

Authors of the report hope that advances in genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics will further be used to develop better cancer screening as well as improve the cancer screening methods that are currently available — though those efforts have not yet been fruitful.

“With the advancement of metabolic profiling technologies, there have been notable efforts over the past decade to clinically exploit cancer-specific metabolism to aid in cancer detection,” the report says. “Thus far, translation and clinical utility have been somewhat disappointing.”

Ultimately, while 2020 did have scientific discoveries that will improve cancer treatment, there is still plenty of work to be done in 2021 and beyond.

Only 4 of the 20 most common cancers have a proven screening method.
 

Better Cancer Screening Is Needed: Hopes for 2021 and Beyond

Each month, we take a look back at the most popular 

 stories. Here are the top 5 stories from July 2020.

5. Dexamethasone Is Affordable and Promising in Treating COVID-19

As the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, research efforts have revealed a potential weapon to add to the treatment arsenal against the virus, a drug that has historically played a crucial role in oncology treatment: the inexpensive, and widely accessible, 

4. Why Be an Oncology Nurse? A Patient Perspective 

Like many people, Jane Biehl, PhD, thought she knew what the field of oncology was all about — 

. Here, she details how her own experience as a patient with cancer has taught her all about the compassion and love found in oncology nurses.

3. Immunotherapy Does Not Increase Death Risk in Patients With COVID-19

According to new findings presented during the 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer, treatment with 

 did not increase the risk of mortality in patients with COVID-19 and cancer. Learn more in this recap.

2. Cancer Organizations Advocate for US to Remain in the World Health Organization

Leading cancer organizations and members of Congress recently wrote a letter to the White House advocating that the 

United States remain in the World Health Organization

 (WHO) after President Trump stated earlier this month that the US will withdraw from WHO.

1. Mental Health Treatment May Improve Cancer Outcomes

Each month, we take a look back at the most popular Oncology Nursing News® stories. Here are the top 5 stories from July 2020.

Prevention