"Until immunomodulators, patients [with myeloma] did not have a great overall survival rate. But when we introduced lenalidomide, we started seeing our patients have life expectancies between five and seven years—which was unheard of prior to these immunomodulators going forward. I think it's promising and allows patients to have quality of life versus therapy of life," ONS member Daniel Verina, DNP, RN, ACNP-BC, nurse practitioner for the multiple myeloma program at Mount Sinai Medical Center i...
Jun 12, 2026•44 min•Season 1Ep. 419
"Radiation therapy is often extremely well tolerated in colorectal cancer. Technology has really changed things. But location of the tumor can affect side effects, such as radiation dermatitis. If a patient has a low-lying tumor, if it's less than six centimeters from the anal verge, the patient is likely to have some skin reaction. It's good to be proactive if that's the case," ONS member Lorraine Drapek, DNP, FNP-BC, AOCNP®, nurse practitioner in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massach...
Jun 05, 2026•29 min•Season 1Ep. 418
"There are a lot of specifics that nurses need to keep in mind as they are administering this herpes simplex modified virus to patients because accidental exposure is of concern both to the patient, to their family members, as well as to healthcare workers. I always recommend nurses wear personal protective equipment, such as a gown, safety glasses, gloves, and/or a face shield," Heidi Finnes, PharmD, RPh, BCOP, director of clinical ambulatory practice at Mayo Clinic and assistant professor of p...
May 29, 2026•35 min•Season 1Ep. 417
"When you have benign conditions, we're actually treating 3 gray, so a significant difference [versus doses of 60 gray for brain cancer]. Typically, when you treat at a high dose, the goal is to destroy tissue, like cancer tissue or cancer cells. But when we give a low dose, the goal is actually to modulate inflammation. And what it does is it slows down those inflammatory cells or those cells that release the chemicals that cause pain and inflammation," Amanda Meyer, DNP, APRN, CNP, family nurs...
May 22, 2026•22 min•Season 1Ep. 416
"We want to make sure that we discuss the details of the treatment and what treatments there are, whether it's an oral drug, whether it's a subcutaneous injection or an IV injection, [the patient's] potential for responding, whether this treatment is curative or supportive, and what the number of visits are. All of those different pieces of information that go into the decision-making process are really important," ONS member Sara Tinsley-Vance, PhD, APRN, AOCN®, nurse practitioner and quality-o...
May 15, 2026•31 min•Season 1Ep. 415
"Skin reactions, such as redness, dryness, and just irritation of the skin, can occur. Since we're irradiating the lung, we can also cause a cough, and that's due to the inflammation from the radiation. Patients can also get esophagitis if the tumor that we're treating is close to the midline of the chest near the esophagus. And probably the most common side effect that we see is fatigue," ONS member Amy MacRostie, RN, OCN®, radiation oncology nurse at St. Charles Cancer Center in Bend, OR, told...
May 08, 2026•14 min•Season 1Ep. 414
"We thought, from a nursing standpoint, 'What is our goal for doing this?' What we wanted was first, education of the patient. Can we successfully educate the patient to prepare them? Can we alleviate as much anxiety as possible so that they feel comfortable coming in and having this done? The second goal is to preserve kidney function throughout the treatment. To date, we've been successful with that. And the third goal is to complete treatment without infection," ONS member Chris Amoroso, BSN,...
May 01, 2026•42 min•Season 1Ep. 413
"They are small, powerful little nuggets. They are actually small signaling proteins that our immune cells use to communicate. They really help regulate immune activation or inflammation and even the growth and survival of immune cells. When cytokines are used therapeutically in oncology, they help to stimulate immune cells such as T cells or natural killer cells to better recognize and attack cancer cells," Maribel Pereiras, PharmD, BCPS, BCOP, clinical pharmacy specialist at the John Theurer C...
Apr 24, 2026•35 min•Season 1Ep. 412
"Not every patient with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is going to progress and die. Only 10%–20% of them will evolve into acute myeloid leukemia. And not all of them need blood transfusions. Some present with low platelet count. It's not just people who are anemic that have MDS—it's different depending on what type of MDS they have. These are averages. We're giving you statistics based on averages, and you're an individual, so we want to treat you as an individual," ONS member Sara Tinsley-Vanc...
Apr 17, 2026•34 min•Season 1Ep. 411
"Cancer and environmental disasters in particular, but the worsening of our environment, are really things that are great equalizers. And we recognize that we're all kind of in this world together. We can really face these issues on a more human level. I think always recognizing that if we look at something, we think, 'Well, that doesn't relate to me or that problem is it really isn't my problem'—it sure is," ONS member Margaret "Peggy" Rosenzweig, PhD, CRNP-C, AOCNP®, FAAN, ONS scholar-in-resid...
Apr 10, 2026•42 min•Season 1Ep. 410
"Interventional oncology has really evolved into an important component of modern cancer care and is often described now as the fourth pillar alongside medical, surgical, and radiation oncology. The specialty now encompasses a broad spectrum of image-guided procedures that support from cancer diagnosis, treatment, to effectively managing symptoms that are caused by the disease. In other words, what we're seeing is that across the continuum of care, IO is playing a vital role," ONS member Evelyn ...
Apr 03, 2026•30 min•Season 1Ep. 409
"A side effect patients might experience is lymphedema. This is an increased buildup of lymphatic fluid in the tissues, either in the breast or in the arm and hand of the affected side. It's quite problematic for women. They might feel self-conscious. It might feel uncomfortable that the arm feels like it's throbbing or heavy. Clothing may not fit quite right. So we're always on the lookout for lymphedema," Maria Fenton-Kerimian, APRN, AOCNP®, nurse practitioner at Weill Cornell Medicine in New ...
Mar 27, 2026•34 min•Season 1Ep. 408
"You want to try to act quickly and be able to know what the pathways are for appropriate escalating when a patient is having symptoms that are reflective of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) or neurotoxicity. These toxicities are very manageable and treatable when recognized early. To summarize, choosing the right patient, knowing the toxicity profile for each product, and acting early is really what helps to prevent severe outcomes with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy," Maribel Pe...
Mar 20, 2026•49 min•Season 1Ep. 407
"Our goal of precision oncology has been to shift to tailored therapies that can help to improve treatment efficacy and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Resistance biomarker testing can help the care team to detect these genomic changes that the tumor may have acquired during therapy that makes the cells resistant to therapy. This information can be extremely helpful when we're talking about making choices about second-line or subsequent-line therapy," ONS member Danielle Fournier, DNP, APRN...
Mar 13, 2026•24 min•Season 1Ep. 406
"The disease is increasingly managed as a chronic condition rather than a diagnosis with an immediate terminal outcome. Particularly, with earlier and more effective and sustained treatment options, we can make this disease a very chronic, long-term, livable condition. I want to make sure that patients are aware that this is not a death sentence. This is something that patients can live with for the long term," Ann McNeill, RN, MSN, APN, nurse practitioner at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Je...
Mar 06, 2026•34 min•Season 1Ep. 405
"We print education sheets that we have, and we say, 'Just ignore this part that says cancer. You're getting this med but for a different indication.' And then you have to really point out what our goals of care are. You're using the information that, as oncology nurses, we like and love, but we're having to cross it out and say, 'Just read this portion and just do this here.' And that can be challenging for the nurse and probably confusing for the patient," ONS member Brandy Thornberry, RN, OCN...
Feb 27, 2026•39 min•Season 1Ep. 404
"Because the premise of immune checkpoint blockade centers around elevating the immune function, we should always take a great deal of caution around those patients who have high immune risks. Those include patients with autoimmune disorders. That's one of our biggest questions that we ask, usually every consult that we're seeing with solid tumor. 'Do you have any history of autoimmune disorders? Tell me a little bit more about it. Is it being treated? What are your symptoms like?' And then also...
Feb 20, 2026•34 min•Season 1Ep. 403
"It's important to clarify that most patients will experience and at least some side effects—and often several. So prevention really means reducing severity, complications, and long-term impact rather than avoiding side effects altogether. This process starts before radiation begins and continues throughout the treatment and includes dental evaluation, baseline swallowing assessments, and thorough patient education," ONS member Astrid Amoresano, RN, OCN®, lead oncology nurse specialist at New Yo...
Feb 13, 2026•25 min•Season 1Ep. 402
"You also want to deal with patient preferences. We do want to get their disease under control. We want to make them live a long, good quality of life. But do they want to come to the clinic once a week? Is it a far distance? Is geography a problem? Do they prefer not taking oral chemotherapies at home? We have to think about what the patient's preferences are to some degree and kind of incorporate that in our decision-making plan for treatments for relapsed and refractory myeloma," Ann McNeill,...
Feb 06, 2026•37 min•Season 1Ep. 401
"Radioimmunoconjugates work through a dual mechanism that combines immunologic targeting with localized radiation delivery. The monoclonal antibody components bind to specific tumor-associated antigens such as CD20, expressed on malignant B cells. Once found, the attached radioisotope delivers beta radiation directly to the tumor, causing DNA damage and cell death," Sabrina Enoch, MSN, RN, OCN®, CNMT, NMTCB (CT), theranostics clinical specialist at Highlands Oncology in Rogers, AR, told Jaime We...
Jan 30, 2026•14 min•Season 1Ep. 400
"The United States does not have a national cancer registry. We have a bunch of state registries. Some of those registries do collaborate and share information, but the issue is the registries that do exist typically do not report cancer by occupation. So, we cannot get our arms around the potential work-relatedness of the health outcome given the current way the state registries collect information. What we're trying to set up, is a way to make what is currently an invisible risk, visible," ONS...
Jan 23, 2026•40 min•Season 1Ep. 399
"[Multiple myeloma] is very treatable, very manageable, but right now it is still considered an incurable disease. So, patients are on this journey with myeloma for the long term. It's very important for us to realize that during their journey, we will see them repeatedly. They are going to be part of our work family. They will be with us for a while. I think it's our job to be their advocate. To be really focused on not just the disease, but periodically assessing that financial burden and psyc...
Jan 16, 2026•44 min•Season 1Ep. 398
"Referring patients to audiology early on has shown dramatic reduction in hearing loss or complications because the audiologist can really see where were they at before they started chemotherapy, where were they at during, if they get an audiogram during their treatment. And then after treatment, it's really important for them to see an audiologist because this is really a survivorship journey for them. And as nurses, the 'so what': We are the first line of defense," ONS member Jennessa Rooker, ...
Jan 09, 2026•38 min•Season 1Ep. 397
"We proposed a concept to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), recognizing that extravasation management requires significant interdisciplinary collaboration and rapid action. There can occasionally be uncertainty or lack of clear guidance when an extravasation event occurs, and our objective was to look at this evidence with the expert panel to create a resource to support oncology teams overall. We hope that the guideline can help mitigate harm and improve patient outcomes," Carol...
Jan 02, 2026•29 min•Season 1Ep. 396
"They [monoclonal antibodies] are able to cause tumor cell death by binding to and blocking to necessary growth factor signaling pathways for tumor cell survival. That's going to be dependent on the target of the antibody, but I'll give an example of epidermal growth factor, or EGFR. This is overexpressed in several different kinds of cancers where activation of this growth factor increases the amount of proliferation and migration of cancer cells. So, if we bind to it and block to it, then that...
Dec 26, 2025•45 min•Season 1Ep. 395
"The thought of recurrence is also a psychosocial issue for our patients. They're being monitored very closely for five years, so there's always that thought in the back of their head, 'What if the cancer comes back? What are the next steps? What am I going to do next?' It's really important that we have conversations with patients and their families about where they're at, what we're looking for, and reassure them that we'll be with them during this journey and help them through whatever next s...
Dec 19, 2025•21 min•Season 1Ep. 394
"I'll go back to the backpack analogy. When your kids come home with a backpack, all of a sudden their homework is not on the desk where it's supposed to be. It's in the kitchen; it kind of spreads all over the place, but it's still in the house. When we give antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs), the chemotherapy does go in, but then it can kind of permeate out of the cell membrane and something right next to it—another cancer cell that might not look exactly like the cancer cell that the chemotherap...
Dec 12, 2025•21 min•Season 1Ep. 393
"Working as an oncology infusion nurse, being oncology certified, attending chapter meetings, going to ONS Congress® has really taught me plenty. But being an oncology patient taught me way more. I know firsthand the fears 'you have cancer' brings. Then going through further testing, CT scans, MRIs, genetics, the whole preparation for surgery was something I never considered when I treated a breast cancer patient," ONS member Catherine Parsons, RN, OCN®, told Valerie Burger, MA, MS, RN, OCN®, CP...
Dec 05, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 392
"Antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) have three basic parts: the antibody part, the cytotoxic chemo, and the linker that connects the two. First, the antibody part binds to the target on the surface of the cell. Antibodies can be designed to bind to proteins with a very high level of specificity. That's what gives it the targeted portion. Then the whole thing gets taken up by the cell and broken down, which releases the chemotherapy part. Some sources will call this the 'payload' or the 'warhead.' T...
Nov 28, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 391
"Any time the patient hears the word 'cancer,' they shut down a little bit, right? They may not hear everything that the oncologist or urologist, or whoever is talking to them about their treatment options, is saying. The oncology nurse is a great person to sit down with the patient and go over the information with them at a level they can understand a little bit more. To go over all the treatment options presented by the physician, and again, make sure that we understand their goals of care," O...
Nov 21, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 390
