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Recent advancements in the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM) have led to significant improvements in patient outcomes, including unprecedented survival rates. Such progress has allowed a paradigm shift toward a chronic care model, with attention increasingly focused on improving patients’ quality of life.

Oral oncolytics offer the ease of self-administration to patients. There is no prodding for stubborn veins, and no need for a port. Therefore, oral therapies empower patients, and often lead to improved quality of life.

Treating cancer with oral medications that are taken at home sounds like a great idea, and it is, once adherence barriers are addressed. Likewise, years ago it was unthinkable that surviving cancer would have a downside, but because late and long-term effects of cancer treatments were not adequately addressed, survivorship quality was suboptimal. The good news is that if survivorship issues can be resolved, so can the problems associated with oral therapy adherence.

Aaron D. Bleznak, MD, MBA, FACS discussed the intent of the new 2012 Commission on Cancer (CoC) standards, and what navigators need to do to comply. “You’re members of a team whose goal is to enhance the quality of cancer care that you’re providing to your patient population,” he said at the Sixth Annual Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators (AONN+) Conference in Atlanta, GA. “Consequently, you have to work with the team to achieve accreditation, and retain accreditation.”

Jennifer R. Klemp, PhD, MPH presented “Genetics and Genomics: How Does Navigation Fit In?” at the Sixth Annual Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators (AONN+) Conference in Atlanta, GA. “The real role of genomic medicine and where we’re going is that we do want to be more personalized,” Dr Klemp said. “The larger panel in genomic testing is going to keep taking us in that direction.”

“What I hope to see within the next 10 years is that when a patient is diagnosed with cancer, they get a palliative care person on their team and they get a rehab professional on their team from diagnosis,” stated Matthew R. LeBlanc, BSN, RN, OCN.

Carol Gunsch, RN, BScN, CONc, de Souza nurse, and Maureen Watt-Smit, RN, BScN, CONc, de Souza nurse, share Cancer Care Ontario’s personal approach to cancer care through standardized psychosocial distress screening and management.

San Francisco, CA—Sexual dysfunction is prevalent in women with breast cancer, and is a consequence of treatment that pre- and postmenopausal women receive. As reported at the 2015 Breast Cancer Symposium, however, the safety and efficacy of available treatments remain understudied at this time.

Fertility and early menopause after cancer can pose challenging emotional and medical issues for patients and their clinicians. Survivors who become infertile because of their cancer treatment are at an increased risk for emotional distress and are often affected by unresolved grief and depression, according to Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, Medical Oncologist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.

The multidisciplinary care model is perceived to be more patient-centered and efficient for patients with lung cancer than the serial care model, according to Satish K. Kedia, PhD, Professor, Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Memphis, TN, and colleagues.