Episode 356: A Nurse’s Guide to the 2024 NIOSH List of Hazardous Drugs
Release Date: 03/28/2025
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,...
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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%...
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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,...
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Episode 357: ONS 50th Anniversary: The Evolution of Cancer Treatment: Stories From the Front Lines
The ONS Podcast
“There have been many changes since the ’70s that have shaped the nurse’s role in administering chemo, and in supporting patients. The major change early on was the transition from that of nurses mixing chemo to that of pharmacists. Regulatory agencies like NIOSH and OSHA defined chemotherapy as hazardous drugs, and professional organizations became involved, leading to the publication of the joint ASCO and ONS Standards of Safe Handling,” ONS member Scarlott Mueller, MPH, RN, FAAN, secretary of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Board and member of the Oncology Nursing...
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Episode 356: A Nurse’s Guide to the 2024 NIOSH List of Hazardous Drugs
The ONS Podcast
“And so you have different kinds of hazards with the drugs that you’re using. That means that in the past, when a lot of oncology drugs, antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer would have been added, you may see that a lot of oncology drugs either weren’t added or they’re added in a different place on the list than they were in the past. That’s due to some of the restructuring of the list we’ll probably talk about later,” Jerald L. Ovesen, PhD, pharmacologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,...
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Episode 355: Pharmacology 101: Hedgehog Pathway Inhibitors
The ONS Podcast
“I genuinely think nurses and pharmacists need to know why these medicines are called hedgehog inhibitors so that we can, in fact, effectively educate our patients. Just because to date, this class has the weirdest name I’ve encountered, and I almost expect at this point that my patients are going to ask me about it. I think that we need to be informed that, just on, where do these names come from, why is it called this, and does it matter to my patient?” Andrew Ruplin, PharmD, clinical oncology pharmacist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN,...
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Episode 354: Breast Cancer Survivorship Considerations for Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“You can give someone a survivorship care plan, but just giving them doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen. Maybe there’s no information about family history. Or maybe there’s information and there’s quite a bit of family history, but there’s nothing that says, ‘Oh, they were ever had genetic testing,’ or ‘Oh, they were ever referred.’ So the intent is so good because it’s to really take that time out when they’re through with active treatment and, you know, try to help give the patient some guidance as to what to expect down the line,” Suzanne Mahon, DNS, RN,...
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Episode 353: ONS 50th Anniversary: Evolution of Oncology Nursing Certification
The ONS Podcast
“The response was, in my opinion, sort of overwhelmingly positive. I think all of us old-timers who were at ONS Congress® in 1986 remember those 1,600 nurses waiting in line to enter the ballroom to take that inaugural exam. It takes a while to check in 1,600 people. They kind of all filled up the lobby outside of the ballroom, and then they spilled over down into the escalator, and the escalators had to be turned off,” Cyndi Miller-Murphy, MSN, FAAN, CAE, first executive director of the Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC), told Clara Beaver, DNP, RN, AOCNS®, ACNS-BC, ONS...
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Episode 352: Pharmacology 101: Epigenetics
The ONS Podcast
“Now, what we found is that epigenetics is actually heritable and it’s actually reversible. And we can now manipulate these principles with pharmacotherapy drugs,” Eric Zack, RN, OCN®, BMTCN®, clinical assistant professor at Loyola College Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing in Chicago, IL, and RN3 at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the epigenetics drug class. Music Credit: “” by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons by...
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Episode 351: What It’s Like to Develop Symptom Intervention Resources
The ONS Podcast
“It is very much a collaborative group process. There are group meetings where we come to consensus on our different ratings. There’s so much support from ONS staff, even amongst our different groups, even when you’re assigned to one peer reviewer. Let’s say you go on vacation, sometimes we’re paired with other people, too. So there is some flexibility in the opportunity as well,” Holly Tenaglia, DNP, APRN, AGCNS-BC, OCN®, lecturer at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a...
info_outline“And so you have different kinds of hazards with the drugs that you’re using. That means that in the past, when a lot of oncology drugs, antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer would have been added, you may see that a lot of oncology drugs either weren’t added or they’re added in a different place on the list than they were in the past. That’s due to some of the restructuring of the list we’ll probably talk about later,” Jerald L. Ovesen, PhD, pharmacologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the latest update to the NIOSH list of hazardous drugs.
Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0
Episode Notes
- NCPD contact hours are not available for this episode.
- ONS Podcast™ episodes:
- ONS Voice articles:
- Hazardous Drug Surface Contamination Prevails, Despite More Diligent PPE
- NIOSH Releases Its 2024 List of Hazardous Drugs
- No Place Like It: Home Care for Patients With Cancer
- What Is ONS’s Stance on Handling Chemotherapy While Pregnant, Breastfeeding, or Trying to Conceive?
- What You Wear Matters When It Comes to Safety
- ONS book: Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs (Fourth Edition)
- ONS course: Safe Handling Basics
- Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing article: Safe Management of Chemotherapy in the Home
-
ONS Learning Library: Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs
- ONS Position Statement: Ensuring Healthcare Worker Safety When Handling Hazardous Drugs
- National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health article: Managing Hazardous Drug Exposures: Information for Healthcare Settings
- NIOSH List of Hazardous Drugs in Healthcare Settings, 2024
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 [email protected].
Highlights From This Episode
“So we look for a carcinogenic hazard. So does this molecule, does this chemical, this drug, have the ability to increase the risk of cancer? A lot of the time that will also tie with genotoxic hazards, but not always. There are some drugs on the list that are carcinogenic through other mechanisms. Sometimes carcinogenicity can be related to hormone signals, can lead to increased risk of cancer. There’s some nuance there, but is it a carcinogenic hazard? That can get it onto the list. Is it a developmental and reproductive hazard?” TS 10:48
“NIOSH can’t say what’s right for every situation, but some organizations have suggested further precautions such as temporary alternative duty for workers who are pregnant or are looking to become pregnant. NIOSH can’t say what’s best for any given facility, but other organizations have given some good suggestions you may want to look into.” TS 13:18
“The list doesn’t really rank hazard. I know a lot of people have kind of treated it that way a lot of times. We don’t say that something is less hazardous if it’s only a developmental or reproductive hazard, because if you’re trying to have a child, then that’s an important hazard to you. And we don’t necessarily say something that’s carcinogenic is more hazardous.” TS 14:34
“Some standard setting organizations have set standards for handling. Really in the oncology setting, particularly oncology pharmacy setting, it’s really changed how some of the handling happens there because some of the standards come out of the pharmacy world. And what’s happened there is some drugs that are oncology drugs, they might have been on table one before just because they were used in the treatment of cancer. They were antineoplastics, so they were on table one. Now, because they’re not identified as a potential carcinogen and they don’t have manufactured special handling information, they are now on table two.” TS 23:39
“Occasionally, if a drug comes out and has manufacturer special handling information, we’ll go ahead and add it to the list. And since we won’t add it into the publication, we typically have a table on that page that puts that there. If a drug is reevaluated and we find that the hazard is not as bad as expected or it’s not a hazard, actually, and we can remove it from the list; sometimes we get new information and that happens.” TS 30:30