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The objective of this study was to describe physical and functional impairments after cancer, and whether physical therapy was utilized to address impairments among cancer survivors from the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study.

The role of the nurse navigator in helping patients through the trajectory of their journey from diagnosis to treatment to survivorship has evolved, and in many settings, the nurse navigator has become a key component of a multidisciplinary approach to cancer care.

Advances in cancer treatment have led to a growing number of survivors, with 14.5 million survivors in 2014 and a projection of 19 million survivors by 2124. Survivorship care planning is now considered a quality metric, and survivorship care plans are a component of accreditation by the Commission on Cancer (CoC). Originally, the CoC stipulated that survivorship plans must be phased in by 2015; however, that date has been pushed to 2019, because this has been difficult to accomplish.

The following clinical trials are currently recruiting patients with renal-cell carcinoma for inclusion in several investigations. Each trial description includes the NLM Identifier to use as reference with ClinicalTrials.gov.

At the 2015 Oncology Nursing Society meeting, Harold P. Freeman, MD, (pictured), Founder and President of Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute, described the establishment of the first patient navigation institute for patients with cancer in the United States.

“ONS recognized that navigation services can be delegated to trained nonprofessionals and/or volunteers, and should be supervised by nurses and social workers. Ongoing training will be needed for these volunteers. They need to learn how to talk to people with cancer,” said Jean Sellers, RN, MSN, Administrative Clinical Director, University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, at the 2015 Oncology Nursing Society meeting.

In an effort to crystallize the evolving and practical application of diagnostic algorithms, prognostication, therapeutic goal setting, and disease management, a multidisciplinary roundtable was convened, which was comprised of physicians from MPN-focused academic centers, community hematologists, outpatient nursing staff, insurance plan administrators, and specialty pharmacists.