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...
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Episode 393: Antibody–Drug Conjugates in Metastatic Breast Cancer
The ONS Podcast
“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 chemotherapy was delivered into—is affected and the chemotherapy goes over to that cancer cell...
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Episode 392: ONS 50th Anniversary: Stories From the Other Side of Cancer
The ONS Podcast
“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®, CPN, member of the ONS 50th anniversary planning committee, during a conversation about...
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Episode 391: Pharmacology 101: Antibody–Drug Conjugates
The ONS Podcast
“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.’ That’s the part that’s attached to the ‘heat-seeking’ part, and that’s...
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Episode 390: Prostate Cancer Treatment Considerations for Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“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,” ONS member Clara Beaver, DNP, RN, AOCNS®, ACNS-BC, manager of clinical education and...
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Episode 389: Biomarker Testing for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
The ONS Podcast
“It’s critical to identify those mutations found that are driving the cancer’s growth and guide the personalized treatment based on those results. And important to remember, too, early testing is crucial for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In studies, it has been found to be associated with improved survival outcomes and reduced mortality,” ONS member Vicki Doctor, MS, BSN, BSW, RN, OCN®, precision medicine director at the City of Hope Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, and Phoenix, AZ, locations, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing...
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Episode 388: ONS 50th Anniversary: Milestones in Oncology Advocacy and Health Policy
The ONS Podcast
“I think we really need to push more of our oncology nurses to get into elected and appointed positions. So often we’re looking at health positions to get involved in, and those are wonderful. We need nurses as secretaries of health, but there are others. We as nurses understand higher education. We understand environment. We understand energy. So I think we look broadly at, what are positions we can get in? Let’s have more nurses run for state legislative offices, for our House of Representatives, for the U.S. Senate,” ONS member Barbara Damron, PhD, LHD, RN, FAAN, told Ryne Wilson,...
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Episode 387: Prostate Cancer Screening, Early Detection, and Disparities
The ONS Podcast
“[When] a lot of men think about prostate exams, they immediately think of the glove going on the hand of the physician, and they immediately clench. But really try to talk with them and discuss with them what some of the benefits are of understanding early detection. Even just having those conversations with their providers so that they understand what the risk and benefits are of having screening. And then educate patients on what a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and digital rectal exam (DRE) actually are—how it happens, what it shows, and what the necessary benefits of those are,”...
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Episode 386: Interprofessional Navigation and the Oral Anticancer Medication Care Compass
The ONS Podcast
“This was a panel of subject matter experts of various nurses and pharmacists. We often found common ground but also discovered new ideas, different touchpoints, and key junctures along that oral anticancer medication journey. For example, the pharmacists were able to share their insights into their unique workflows within their practice setting. What resulted is a resource that truly reflects that collaborative effort between the disciplines,” ONS member Mary Anderson, BSN, RN, OCN®, senior manager of nursing membership and professional development at the Network for Collaborative...
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Episode 385: ONS 50th Anniversary: Evolution of Cancer Survivorship
The ONS Podcast
“It started out by doing a kind of a white paper that we called Imperatives for Quality Cancer Care. Ellen Stovall, our CEO [of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship] at the time, gave this report to Dr. Richard Klausner, who was the head of National Cancer Institute at the time. He called Ellen immediately and said, ‘Why are we not doing something about this?’ Within one year, we had the Office of Cancer Survivorship at NCI,” ONS member Susan Leigh, BSN, RN, told ONS member Ruth Van Gerpen, MS, RN-BC, APRN-CNS, AOCNS®, PMGT-BC, member of the ONS 50th anniversary...
info_outline“I think that this is an area that is exploding. Working with drug development, I see new agents all the time, with unique targets I’ve never heard about, with targets I have heard about used in a different way. So, I really think we’re going to see more and more bispecifics. A lot of these drugs are used second line, third line, fourth line. I would not be surprised if they moved up in treatment, especially as we learn safer ways to give these drugs,” ONS member Moe Schwartz, PharmD, BCOP, FHOP, professor of pharmacy practice at the James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati, OH, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about bispecific antibodies.
Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0
Earn 0.5 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by October 3, 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: Learner will report an increase in knowledge related to the use of bispecific antibodies in the treatment of cancer.
Episode Notes
- Complete this evaluation for free NCPD.
- ONS Podcast™ episodes:
- ONS Voice articles:
- ONS Voice oncology drug reference sheets:
- ONS book: Guide to Cancer Immunotherapy (second edition)
- ONS course: ONS/ONCC® Chemotherapy Immunotherapy Certificate™
- Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing article: Optimizing Transitions of Care in Multiple Myeloma Immunotherapy: Nurse Roles
- Other ONS resources:
- DailyMed homepage
- Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association late-breaking news article: The Emerging Use of Bispecific Antibodies with Chemotherapy in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma
To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS communities.
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Highlights From This Episode
“It was 2014 that most of us think of as the beginning of bispecifics in cancer, and that was with approval of blinatumomab. That was granted accelerated approval for the treatment of patients with Philadelphia chromosome–negative relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It is a bispecific that targets CD19-expressing tumor cells and CD3 on T cells. It’s the original bispecific T-cell engager and is often called a ‘BiTE.’” TS 2:11
“The term ‘bispecific’ means that this is an artificial protein that’s developed to hit two different antigens simultaneously. They can be two different epitopes on the same antigen. They can be an antigen on a cancer cell and CD3 on a T cell that kind of recruits the T cell to the cancer. So, there are different types [of bispecific antibodies]. The subtype that we often talk about are bispecific T-cell engagers, which are those bispecifics that do target the T cell. And currently, the target on the T cell that’s utilized is the CD3 molecule. That’s not the only one that will be used in the future because there’s a lot of work being done on other types of T-cell engagers.” TS 4:21
“The targets for lymphoma are CD20. Those are bispecific T-cell engagers that hit CD20 on the lymphoma cell, as well as CD3 on a T cell. ... In myeloma, we have two different targets that have been utilized. One is BCMA or B-cell maturation antigen. That sits on the surface of myeloma cells and on some healthy B cells. ... There’s also a target used in myeloma that’s called GPRC5D, which stands for G protein–coupled receptor, class C, group 5, member D. ... In small cell lung cancer, there’s delta-like ligand 3 (DLL3); it’s part of the NOTCH pathway. ... And then this year, we’ve had a couple agents come out that target HER2.” TS 6:52
“[Toxicities] are very dependent on what your target is. ... The bispecific T-cell engager that’s used in myeloma that targets the GPRC5D is also expressed on tissues that produce hard keratin like hair follicles and actually, within the tongue. So the toxicities that we see with that agent are something you wouldn’t expect to see if you were using a myeloma agent. You see nail and skin issues. You see taste problems. So it’s very specific about the target, which says to me, that every time a new one of these agents comes out, I have to learn about the target that helps me learn about the toxicity. I find that fascinating and really appreciate that.” TS 16:19
“Cytokine release syndrome has been one of the areas that drug development has really focused on to see how they can help mitigate the severity [of it]. ... [One of] the strategies that has been incorporated and studied in clinical trials is the step-up dosing scheme. [It’s] where you give initial small doses and over time, increase the dose to the dose you’re going to continue with. Usually, monitoring in the hospital is required by the FDA approval for anywhere from 28–48 hours for the first couple of doses. And that’s a real common strategy that you’ll see. Premedication with H2 blockers, H1 blockers, sometimes steroids. These are also things that are incorporated within the approvals of these drugs and are important to look at.” TS 20:53