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In recent years, the cancer patient’s experience has been recognized as an important factor in determining the value of a treatment. According to patient reports, their quality of life (QOL) remained stable on the immunotherapy nivolumab, whereas it significantly deteriorated on chemotherapy, as shown in an analysis of a phase 3 study of platinum-refractory, recurrent, metastatic head and neck cancer.

For many patients with advanced melanoma and lung cancer, checkpoint inhibitors have been a godsend, helping to extend survival to previously unthinkable lengths.

At the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium, the message was clear and emphatic: We should care about caregivers as both co-deliverers and co-recipients of healthcare services.

Most oncologists’ knowledge about toxicities associated with newer therapies comes mainly from clinical trials, but publications of clinical trial safety results may be misleading, according to a study presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology 2016 Congress.

A simple quality improvement project to increase duration of hospice care for patients has doubled hospice length of stay, reaching the national median in 1 year.

With this issue of JONS, we pay tribute to our beginnings as navigators in breast cancer management by recognizing our national breast cancer awareness month and focusing on best practices in breast cancer.

The publishers of JONS had the pleasure of speaking with Drs Dempsey and Song about their multiple-template strategy that analyzes ctcDNA and ccfDNA in blood as well as the initiation of their clinical trial in triple-negative breast cancer.

Endocrine therapy is a valuable treatment option for women whose breast tumors express the estrogen receptor (ER). In these women, endocrine therapy can block the tumor’s ability to produce estrogen–a hormone that promotes the growth of ER+ tumors–or interfere with its actions.

The world of breast cancer management is changing, just as the statistics for the disease has improved over the past decade.

The BCI provides additional information about the individual’s risk of recurrence beyond year 5 and the likelihood of benefiting from extended therapy and may help encourage compliance in those who opt to continue.