Caring for a loved one with cancer is an act of love and compassion—an act that the majority of the 18 million individuals living with cancer in the United States rely primarily on unpaid family and friend caregivers to provide. Those caregivers rarely have formal training, and many do not have adequate support to navigate the complexities of medical and nursing care.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work with the U.S. Congress to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries maintain access to telehealth. Led by U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), the group sent HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra a letter on January 29, 2024, making the case for permanent telehealth legislation before the current waivers expire at the end of 2024.
A comprehensive, ongoing process that involves providing potential and enrolled research participants with adequate information about a clinical trial’s purpose, procedures, risks, and benefits, informed consent helps individuals make sure they fully understand the implications when deciding whether they want to participate.
On February 16, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to lifileucel (Amtagvi™), a tumor-derived autologous T-cell immunotherapy, for adult patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma previously treated with a PD-1–blocking antibody and, if BRAF V600 positive, a BRAF inhibitor with or without a MEK inhibitor.
On February 16, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved osimertinib (Tagrisso®) with platinum-based chemotherapy for patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (la/mNSCLC) whose tumors have EGFR exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R variants, as detected by an FDA-approved test.
On February 15, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted traditional approval to tepotinib (Tepmetko®) for adult patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) exon 14–skipping alterations.
On February 14, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported Smiths Medical ASD Inc.’s recall of its Medfusion model 4000 syringe pump because of issues associated with earlier software versions that may affect the alarm system, the pump, the control screen, and other parts of the pump. If undetected issues are present in the device, the device has the potential to fail and delay, interrupt, or fail to deliver the therapy per the programmed setting.
You’ve accumulated the experience, practice hours, and NCPD, and now you’re ready to take the next step in your oncology nursing career and pursue OCN® certification from the Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC). But what about the test? If the idea of sitting for the exam fills you with fear, you’re not alone—studies show that nurses often experience moderate stress (42.1%) and mild to moderate anxiety (19.4%–25.1%) about taking tests.
Regular symptom check-ins and early survivorship education with a nurse can improve breast cancer survivors’ quality of life, fear of recurrence, and mental health, as compared to standard physician follow-up, researchers reported in study results presented at the 2023 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
On February 13, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved irinotecan liposome (Onivyde®) with oxaliplatin, fluorouracil, and leucovorin, for the first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.