Libsyn Directory

Episode 389: Biomarker Testing for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Release Date: 11/14/2025

Episode 407: Pharmacology 101: CAR T-Cell Immunotherapy

The ONS Podcast

“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 Pereiras, PharmD, BCPS, BCOP, clinical pharmacy specialist at the John Theurer Cancer Center at...

Episode 406: Drug Resistance Biomarkers and Their Impact on Cancer Treatment Choices

The ONS Podcast

“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, AGPCNP-BC, AOCNP®, advanced practice RN at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...

Episode 405: Long-Term Multiple Myeloma Considerations for Oncology Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“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 Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, NJ, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®,...

Episode 404: Tailor Patient Treatment Education for Non-Oncology Indications

The ONS Podcast

“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®, outpatient infusion and VAD supervisor at Logan Health in Kalispell, MT,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

More Episodes

“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 practice at ONS, during a conversation about the oncology nurse’s role in NSCLC biomarker testing.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0

This podcast is sponsored by Lilly Oncology and is not eligible for NCPD contact hours. ONS is solely responsible for the criteria, objectives, content, quality, and scientific integrity of its programs and publications.

Episode Notes

This episode is not eligible for NCPD.
ONS Podcast™ episodes:
ONS Voice articles:
ONS book: Guide to Cancer Immunotherapy (second edition)
ONS course: Genomic Foundations for Precision Oncology
Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing article: Using Nurse Navigators to Improve Timeliness of Biomarker Testing for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Oncology Nursing Forum article: Precision Medicine Testing and Disparities in Health Care for Individuals With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Narrative Review
Other ONS resources:
National Comprehensive Cancer Network homepage

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

“These biomarkers are used to provide information about cancer’s characteristics or behavior. In oncology precision medicine specifically, molecular tests can help with diagnosing a cancer that is maybe an unknown primary. It can help with monitoring response to therapy, detect recurrence of disease before other tests can find that, predict prognosis or how aggressive the cancer may be, and guide treatment decisions for targeted therapies.” TS 3:14

“Some of the key biomarkers recommended by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) to be tested in patients who have NSCLC are EGFR, ALK, KRAS, BRAF, MET exon 14 skipping mutation, HER2 which is a protein expression from an ErbB protein, PD-L1 which is a protein expression that’s used to guide immunotherapy choices, and then finally there are three fusions: ROS1, RET, and NTRK. [These] are pretty rare but really important to be tested for in patients who have NSCLC.” TS 3:46

“Another important challenge for nurses related to this topic is that these results may not reveal a targeted mutation for the patient and that could be very disappointing. So, being able to provide that emotional support to a patient if they have that result … you can actually reinforce with them that if [they] go onto another treatment that the physician decides to put [them] on, the tumor can change. New pathogenic variants can develop based on the treatment that they’re getting, and another test can be done. And maybe at that time—a new biomarker that could be targeted—we’d be seeing on the new test.” TS 7:32

“Another circumstance we didn’t talk about yet is that maybe the result came back saying that the quality was not sufficient. And sometimes that happens, but that doesn’t mean that we’re at the end of the road, necessarily. So, you could explain to the patient that that may mean that possibly, a new biopsy would be ordered by the physician. Or if a new biopsy or another tissue sample is not available, then maybe the physician would pivot to sending a blood specimen for the molecular testing. So that would definitely be a way [nurses] could support their patients.” TS 11:52

“In the case of patients with NSCLC, early testing is so important. So, advocating for that prompt biomarker testing to be done, making sure that it’s comprehensive, that it’s actually looking for all of those—I think it was 12 biomarkers—that I mentioned earlier. That this testing is done as soon as possible after diagnosis or progression. Something that I talk about all the time—personalized care, precision medicine—really matters. So, tailoring treatments for patients based on the biology of the tumor that’s driving the cancer’s growth is really crucial if you’re going to be working as an oncology nurse. Another crucial thing, because it’s changing so quickly, is to stay informed.” TS 16:23

TOPICS