Libsyn Directory

Episode 339: A Lesson on Labs: How to Monitor and Educate Patients With Cancer

Release Date: 11/29/2024

Episode 367: Pharmacology 101: PARP Inhibitors

The ONS Podcast

Episode 367: Pharmacology 101: PARP Inhibitors “We know that in cells that are proliferating very quickly, including cancer cells, single-strand DNA breaks are very common. When that happens, these breaks are often repaired by the PARP enzyme, and the cells can continue their replication process. If we block PARP, that repair cannot happen. So in blocking that, these single-strand breaks then lead to double-strand breaks, which ultimately is leading to cell apoptosis,” Danielle Roman, PharmD, BCOP, manager of clinical pharmacy services at the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute in...

Episode 366: ONS 50th Anniversary: Generations of Nurses Keep Oncology in the Family

The ONS Podcast

“[My mom] would always be very inspirational whenever I would see her studying so long. And when she finally got to be a nurse, I always admired her vocation and compassion with her patients. She would always go above and beyond for all of her patients. I also got inspired a lot by my brother, as well, just seeing how passionate he was for caring for his patients for the families as well, and helping them deal with the any grief or loss that they were experiencing, Carolina Rios, MSN, RN, CPhT, told Valerie Burger, RN, MA, MS, OCN®, CPN, member of the ONS 50th anniversary planning...

Episode 365: Radiation-Associated Secondary Cancers

The ONS Podcast

“From a radiation standpoint, the biggest thing we’re looking at is the treatment site, the dosage, and the way the radiation has been delivered. There are different ways that we can focus radiation using methods such as intensity-modulated radiotherapy, volumetric modulated arc therapy, flattening radiation beams, and proton beam therapy to try to help minimize radiation exposure to healthy tissues to minimize patient risk for secondary cancers,” ONS member Andrea Matsumoto, DNP, AGACNP-BC, AOCNP®, radiation oncology nurse practitioner at Henry Ford Health in Detroit, MI, told Jaime...

Episode 364: How to Prepare for a Nursing Examination

The ONS Podcast

“Everyone will probably say this, but it is so true. Do not cram the night before the exam. The most important thing the night before the exam is to get a good night’s sleep. You might be so nervous. You’re like, ‘I can get any new information that matters right before the exam,’ but you can’t. Any information that you know you will have gotten in the time that you spent studying already. Really, you have to trust yourself,” Talia Lapidus, BSN, RN, professional staff nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at UPMC in Pittsburgh, PA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS,...

Episode 363: Lung Cancer Treatment Considerations for Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“A lot of other disease sites, they have some targeted therapies, they have some immunotherapies [IO]. In lung cancer, we have it all. We have chemo. We have IO. We have targeted therapies. We have bispecific T-cell engagers. We have orals, IVs. I think it’s just so important now that, particularly for lung cancer, you have to be well versed on all of these,” ONS member Beth Sandy, MSN, CRNP, thoracic medical oncology nurse practitioner at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology...

Episode 362: Pharmacology 101: MET Inhibitors

The ONS Podcast

“The signaling and that binding of the MET and the HGF help, in a downstream way, lead to cell proliferation, cell motility, survival, angiogenesis, and also invasion—so all of those key cancer hallmarks. And because of it being on an epithelial cell, it’s a really good marker because it’s found in many, many different types of cancers, so it makes it what we call kind of a nice actionable mutation,” ONS member Marianne Davies, DNP, ACNP, AOCNP®, FAAN, senior oncology nurse practitioner at Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center in New Haven, CT, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS,...

Episode 361: ONS 50th Anniversary: The Value of ONS Membership in Advancing the Oncology Nursing Profession

The ONS Podcast

“We spent time today discussing all the ways that owners can have a positive impact on career growth, whether you’re a bedside nurse or just in teaching, research, hospital leadership. More than career growth, I see ONS as kind of a barrier to burnout and a catalyst for professional self-care. I think that no matter what aspect of oncology care you’re involved in, it is a difficult and complex specialty. And I think with that can come a lot of challenges and tough days, and ONS brings a sense of community to that and, specifically, a community that is pushing cancer care forward,”...

Episode 360: An Overview of Brain Malignancies for Oncology Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“Everyone’s brain is extremely heterogenic, so it’s different. You can put five of us in a room; we can all have the same diagnosis of a [glioblastoma multiforme], but all of ours can be different. They’re highly aggressive biologically. It’s a small area in a hard shell. So trying to get through the blood–brain barrier is different. There’s a lot of areas of hypoxia in the brain. There’s a lot of pressure there. The microbiology is very different—it’s a cold environment versus a hot environment—and then the pathways are just different,” Lori Cappello, MSN, APN-C,...

Episode 359: Lung Cancer Screening, Early Detection, and Disparities

The ONS Podcast

Episode 359: Lung Cancer Screening, Early Detection, and Disparities “I was actually speaking to a primary care audience back a few weeks ago, and we were talking about lung cancer screening. And they said, ‘Our patients, they don’t want to do it.’ And I said, ‘Do you remind them that lung cancer is curable?’ Because everybody thinks it is a death sentence. But when you’re talking about screening a patient, I think it’s really important to say, ‘Listen, if we find this early, stage I or stage II, our chances of curing this and it never coming back again is upwards of 60%...

Episode 358: Pharmacology 101: KRAS Inhibitors

The ONS Podcast

“It’s been known for quite a while that [KRAS] is a mutation that leads to cancer development, but for really over four decades, researchers couldn’t figure out a way to target it. And so, it was often considered something that was undruggable. But all of this changed recently. So about four years ago, in 2021, we had the approval of the first KRAS inhibitor. So it’s specifically a KRAS G12C inhibitor known as sotorasib,” Danielle Roman, PharmD, BCOP, manager of clinical pharmacy services at the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute in Pittsburgh, PA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN,...

More Episodes

“The nurse’s role in monitoring the lab values really depends on the clinics you're working at, but really when our patients are receiving treatment, especially in the infusion center, the nurses should be looking at those lab values prior to treatment being started,” Clara Beaver, DNP, RN, AOCNS^®, ACNS-BC, clinical nurse specialist at Karmanos Cancer Center in Michigan told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS^®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS during a conversation about how to monitor and educate patients with cancer.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod 

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 

Earn [#] contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by November 29, 2026. The planners and faculty for this episode have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose. ONS is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. 

Learning outcome: The learner will report an increase in knowledge related to monitoring labs and educating patients with cancer.

Episode Notes 

To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.  

To find resources for creating an Oncology Nursing Podcast club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library. 

To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email [email protected]. 

“Your traditional chemotherapy agents are the ones that we see the most lab abnormalities with, and we can predict those a little bit more with the advent of more of the advanced targeted therapies and immunotherapies, we still see lab values that are altered because of the way that the treatment works, but they may differ a little bit than what we traditionally saw with our normal chemotherapy agents.” TS 2:51

“I talked about the lifespan of all the other cells, and Neutrophils are usually what stop treatment, and part of that is, is that the lifespan of a neutrophil is 48 hours. It is proliferated very frequently in the bone marrow. But that is usually what we see. The cells that we see that stop treatment, and as you mentioned earlier, classic chemotherapy really the types of treatment that historically, we've been given and we have given to patients, and we've seen those blood counts really significantly impacted.” TS 6:21

“Kidney function, or renal function tests, are really determined whether the kidneys are functioning the way they should be. We look at an estimated glomerular filtration rate, or GFR, which is really based on the patient’s protein level, their age, gender, and race. And the test really looks at how efficiently the kidneys are clearing the waste from the body. So that’s really one that we need to look at, especially as we’re giving agents that are excreted through the kidneys.” TS 12:23

“I think it’s important for nurses to start looking at lab results with their patient very early on, you know, even before treatment starts, so they understand what the normals look like. So when they do get those lab results, because now pretty much everybody has patient portals, right? So the labs are reported in there, and they’re seeing the labs before they're talking to their providers. if we can start early on and talk to them about what the normal lab values are, what they mean, and what we're looking at when we're drawing these labs. I think it’s really important for the patient.” TS 27:00

TOPICS