NCCN, ASCO Guide Nurses in Managing Checkpoint Inhibitor Side Effects
February 20th 2018Recognizing and understanding how to manage side effects related to immunotherapy treatements is key for nurses. To educate healthcare teams on immunotherapy-related toxicities, The National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Society of Clinical Oncology issued new guidelines.
Dense Tissue Is Not an Obstacle to Immunotherapy in Desmoplastic Melanoma
January 31st 2018Researchers have recently discovered that immunotherapy agents have potential to effectively treat desmoplastic melanoma, even though the dense tissue associated with this rare cancer would seem to preclude it.
Ovarian Cancer Research Pivots Toward Combination Therapies
January 31st 2018Immunotherapy alone has not shown much success in treating ovarian cancer, despite success with other cancers, so researchers are now testing combinations of immunotherapy drugs with other agents to see if it enhances effectiveness.
Emerging Treatments in Bladder Cancer
January 25th 2018The year 2017 saw significant advancements in the field of bladder cancer treatment. Five Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals for checkpoint inhibitors in both the first and second line setting opened up the immunotherapy landscape, and more develoments are on the way.
Expert Examines Immunotherapy's Role in Squamous Cell Lung Cancer
November 29th 2017“Immunotherapy is a new option for patients and is well established,” said George R. Blumenschein, MD. “We are refining how we use it. There will be a number of additional refinements as we have the new data that will be coming forward in the next few months.”
Advice to Nurses on Handling Immunotherapy's Side Effects
November 27th 2017In an interview with Oncology Nursing News, the assistant professor at the Yale School of Nursing discussed a new standard of care with immunotherapy, common side effects, and why patients sometimes withhold information from their healthcare team.
Nivolumab Gains Approval for MSI-H or dMMR Colorectal Cancer
August 1st 2017The FDA has granted accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo) for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).
Immunotherapy A First in Treating Merkel Cell Carcinoma
July 19th 2017The immunotherapy agent, avelumab (Bavencio) is the first drug to receive approval to treat Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a rare form of skin cancer. Carrie Best was the first patient to enroll in a clinical trial of avelumab, the first to receive the drug for Merkel cell carcinoma, and the first to become cancer-free.