Some info from ONS congress

Hello everyone!

I am finally sitting down to say “Hi” to you all, and post a couple of things about ONS congress.

The Oncology Nursing Society holds a congress, or conference yearly to discuss new developments in cancer care. Of course there is ASCO which is the BIG global cancer conference, but the one I attended is nursing focused.

I am ever so grateful for being given the opportunity to represent our foundation, and to meet new people who can further our cause.

I also was so happy to meet a new advocate, Heidi. She is absolutely WONDERFUL, warm, and caring. I hope to see her again sometime.

Anyhow, I spent the majority of my time looking through the poster presentations and was also able to attend a couple of sessions.

One interesting poster/presenter was one that I had seen last year at ASCO discussing Grade 3-4 FU toxicity. The presenter was at ONS with new developments recently discovered.

The poster was titled:

“DPYD Gene Mutations Are More Prevalent in Patients Experiencing Grade 3-4-FU Toxicity”

The research was funded by Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc., Salt Lake City, UT.

The new research presented on the poster was DPYD mutation prevalence in patients with elevated 5-FU Plasma Levels.

” The DPYD gene variants were identified in 7 of the 24 patients experiencing elevated 5-FU plasma levels”.
“The E412E variant was observed at a frequency similar to that of the common high risk mutations”.

So what this says to me is that, as we are all rapidly realizing, our genes play a huge part in how and why our bodies develop cancer…..or how our bodies will react to treatments for cancer.
Chemotherapy is moving towards targeted, gene based therapy. Very individualized.

5-FU is a commonly given chemotherapy agent, and some of you have received the oral form- Xeloda for treatment of CC.

To quote the poster ” 5-FU in chemotherapy regimens remains widespread, yet DPYD gene testing utilization remains minimal. Most testing occurs post-treatment in response to a severe toxicity rather than pre-treatment, which would allow for treatment adaptation to reduce toxicity risk”.

Perhaps with this new research, patients prescribed Xeloda or 5-FU as part of their treatment plan will be tested prior to initiation of therapy. This would in my opinion, greatly improve the quality of a person’s life (less toxic side effects), and perhaps increase the chances that the treatment plan (chemotherapy regimen) will be maintained.

Another poster I saw was by a nurse researcher out of Korea. It was a study done on foot reflexology and the decrease in dyspnea ( shortness of breath) in cancer patients.
What caught my eye was that one of the patients in the study had Cholangiocarcinoma.

I will have to track down the abstract for the poster as the phone I had taken a picture of it with crashed and it got lost! AHH! But needless to say, I think it is exciting to see studies of CAM (complementary and Alternative Medicine) implementation.

As soon as I track down the abstract I will attempt to post it for everyone.

I also bumped into two old colleagues of mine who are APRNs in Virginia. I was able to pass along our information, and discuss our foundation (and our goals) with them. I will be shipping our beautiful new newsletter and foundation packets out to their cancer center in Richmond.

-Karen