UPMC Hillman Cancer Center | Strategic Alliance Partners

An oncology nurse initiative increased the rate of end-of-life discussions in patients with advanced cancer.

In this episode of “The Vitals,” Heidi Donovan, PhD, RN, discusses novel symptom management intervention for women with recurrent ovarian cancer.

Heidi Donovan, PhD, RN, comments on principles of symptom management that she believes need to be better implemented in clinical practice—particularly for patients with ovarian cancer.

A new symptom-management guide designed by oncology nurses helps women with ovarian cancer feel more in control of their symptoms.

A nurse-driven palliative care referral intervention demonstrated preliminary success in increasing the number of patients who received this form of supportive care.

After 6 months of additional follow-up, patients with resected high-risk stage II melanoma continued to experience improved relapse-free survival following treatment with adjuvant pembrolizumab.

Antoinette Wozniak, MD, FACP, FASCO, outlines the importance of careful patient monitoring in lung cancer and emerging therapy options expected to change the treatment landscape.

With the identification of actionable alterations, precision medicine continues to lead the way in all areas of oncology, but especially in melanoma, according to Jason J. Luke, MD, FACP, who added that, in order to successfully apply personalized therapy, it’s critical to be fluent in the differences between biomarkers.

Despite the recent advancements with BRAF-targeted therapies and PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors, there is still much to learn in the field of melanoma, especially with regard to disease biology, according to Jason J. Luke, MD, FACP, who added that this understanding is needed to inform development and sequencing strategies, as emphasized during the 2020 SMR Virtual Congress.

Some oncology nurses are leading the improvement of survivorship care, a field that is becoming increasingly important in the world of cancer.