Episode 347: Care Considerations for Radiopharmaceuticals and Theranostics in Patients With Cancer
Release Date: 01/24/2025
Episode 403: Pharmacology 101: Checkpoint Inhibitors
The ONS Podcast
“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 patients who have undergone organ transplants. Now, interestingly, this does include stem...
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Episode 402: Radiation Site-Specific Side Effects: Head and Neck Cancer
The ONS Podcast
“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 York Proton Center in New York, NY, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager...
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Episode 401: Multiple Myeloma Treatment Considerations for Oncology Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“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, RN, MSN, APN, nurse practitioner at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Jersey Shore University...
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Episode 400: Pharmacology 101: Radioimmunoconjugates
The ONS Podcast
“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 Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a...
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Episode 399: National Hazardous Drug Exposure Registry
The ONS Podcast
“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 member Melissa McDiarmid, MD, MPH, DABT, professor of medicine and epidemiology and public...
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Episode 398: An Overview of Multiple Myeloma for Oncology Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“[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 psychosocial aspect,” Ann McNeill, RN, MSN, APN, nurse practitioner at the John Theurer Cancer...
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Episode 397: Cancer Symptom Management Basics: Ototoxicity
The ONS Podcast
“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, PhD, RN, OCN®, director of nursing excellence at the Tampa General Hospital Cancer...
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Episode 396: Nursing Considerations From the ONS/ASCO Extravasation Guideline
The ONS Podcast
“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,” Caroline Clark, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC, OCN®, EBP-C, director of guidelines and quality at ONS, told...
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Episode 395: Pharmacology 101: Monoclonal Antibodies
The ONS Podcast
“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 would help halt these pathways and stop cancer cell growth,” Carissa Ganihong, PharmD,...
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Episode 394: Prostate Cancer Survivorship Considerations for Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“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 steps happen,” ONS member Clara Beaver, DNP, RN, AOCNS®, ACNS-BC, manager...
info_outline"If you take your normal radiation oncology experience, as we know in radiation oncology, radiations are done by the machines, you know, externally. Nurses deal with the side effects and everything like that, whereas radiopharmaceuticals are given kind of on the internal basis, they’re systemic,” ONS member John Hollman, BSN, RN, OCN®, radiation nurse educator for Texas Oncology, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about caring for patients receiving radiopharmaceuticals and theranostics.
Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0
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: Learners will report an increase in knowledge related to radiopharmaceuticals and theranostics in cancer care.
Episode Notes
- The NCPD activity for this episode has expired, but you can still earn NCPD through many other ONS Podcast episodes. Find a full list of opportunities.
- ONS Podcast™ episodes:
- ONS Voice articles:
- Radiopharmaceuticals and Theranostics Offer New Options for Oncology Nurses to Transform Cancer Care
- Radiopharmaceuticals Pack a One-Two Punch Against Cancer
- Oncology Drug Reference Sheet: Radium 223 Dichloride
- Oncology Drug Reference Sheet: Lutetium Lu 177 Dotatate
- Oncology Drug Reference Sheet: Lutetium Lu 177 Vipivotide Tetraxetan
- ONS book: Manual for Radiation Oncology Nursing Practice and Education (fifth edition)
- ONS courses:
-
Step Outside Your Specialty: Broaden Your Learning Horizon Across ONS Congress™ Session Tracks
- Share your experience with ONS Voice.
To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.
To find resources for creating an ONS Podcast Club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library.
To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org.
Highlights From This Episode
"I think most places are now doing the seven days, just to be extra cautious and you know, can't you be around any pregnant women or children, you can’t just be going to Target and stuff like that right after your injection because you are radioactive, and try not to share a bathroom with your family, that can be difficult and that leads into, as we’ve talked about in many talks that we’ve had, the social situation.” TS 8:08
“It’s really up to that nurse to recognize, like a good infusion nurse, to recognize the signs and symptoms of an infusion reaction and then to catch it at the earliest possible moment.” TS 11:42
We’re not really dependent on lab values between treatments, whereas the infusion you have to look at your lab values. These are the game changer.” TS 13:20
“You just hear the term radiation, and you just think of Chernobyl, or you think of like these worst-case, media-blown things and you think, how are you not being dosed with radiation every day? Because they don’t realize that you have this whole radiation safety team that’s required to be overseeing that you’re doing things safely and effectively, that these nurses that are administering these therapies or these therapists that are helping with the therapy are the safest as possible.” TS 18:37
“If it wasn’t safe, we wouldn’t be doing it. You know what I mean? So, there is that implicit bias that I think I can foresee a lot of people trying hard to get over. And if you do have questions, anyone who’s listening, and you’re scared that your center is going to roll this out, please talk to your physicians, please talk to your radiation oncologists, please talk to your radiation safety officers. They can definitely assure and put your fears at rest, hopefully. I 100% trust the radiation safety officers.” TS 19:45
“That’s why the nurses really need to be educated by those radiation safety teams so they can pass those questions, or they can answer those questions, alleviate those fears on consultation—or actually during the week when we’re calling in for questions.” TS 21:07
“I think getting both teams involved, if you’re going to really do this partnership, I find it really rare that it’s ever solely in rad onc. It’s always usually a combination of both. They’re always referred to us from that onc or somewhere. So, you really need that partnership.” TS 23:20
“This is so great to see what the future holds with these. And like I said, now they’re trying to do clinical studies for different diagnoses. So I think it’s just going to explode in the next few years about what we can use these for. It’s really an exciting time to be not only in oncology, but in radiation oncology.” TS 26:54