The word advocacy comes from the Middle English word “advocacie” or “intercession” and the Anglo-French word “advocassie,” meaning “pleading.” As a profession, I believe nurses pride ourselves as being advocates for our patients and their families. I can easily say that most nurses—myself included—think of advocacy in terms of daily practice. We’re always making sure patients have the right resources and knowledge and have their basic needs met to get through their daily treatments.
Depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and cognitive difficulties are just some mental health concerns that can affect cancer survivors: those living with, through, and beyond a cancer diagnosis. As many as three out of every four cancer survivors can experience acute or chronic symptoms of psychological distress, which can negatively affect quality of life, engagement in follow-up care, and health outcomes.
People with breast implants have a risk of developing breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in April 2019. Typically the cancer is limited to the scar tissue and fluid near an implant, but some patients experience spread throughout the body. The risk increases with textured implants in particular.
On June 10, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic or unresectable recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
Where you put your attention matters more than you realize. For example, when you are thinking or talking about work-life stressors, your ability to take in other sensory input is challenged. One way to break out of the mental stress loop is to listen to music. Music can divert the brain’s attention, giving you a break from repetitive thoughts and judgments. The variety of music genres to choose from when looking for ways to shift your attention and enhance mood is ever increasing.
As more patients receive treatment with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, oncology nurses will need to be aware of the long-term effects of treatment that may persist into survivorship. However, because the treatment is so new, studies measuring those patient-reported concerns are still forthcoming. The majority of today’s recommendations for survivorship management are based on experts’ clinical experience.
On June 10, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to polatuzumab vedotin-piiq (PolivyTM), a CD79b-directed antibody-drug conjugate indicated in combination with bendamustine and a rituximab product for adult patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified, after at least two prior therapies.
Health care is driving domestic policy agenda, and voters have shown it’s a crucial component in their decision making. The money associated with healthcare costs has been a driving factor in politics year after year. Public opinion polling found that health care is the most important factor when it comes to financial burden for Americans, reports from 2018 indicated that Americans spent more than $88 billion on health care alone.
Although immunotherapy has a unique set of toxicities compared to traditional chemotherapy, in general, grade 3 or 4 toxicities are rare—with the exception of grade 3 diarrhea and colitis. The mechanisms by which immune-related diarrhea and colitis occur are not clear. However, T-cell activation leads to high levels of CD4 T-helper cell cytokines and cytolytic CD8 T-cell tissue infiltration. Some research suggests that depleting regulatory T cells also induces autoimmunity.