Dallas Chapter of the
Oncology Nursing Society
President’s Corner:
Virtual Issue 2 November 2007
Fall is here and cool weather has finally arrived in
Dallas. The State Fair of Texas is concluded that means the busy holidays are just around the corner and reflection of another year will soon come to and end and a new year beginning. As President I want to reflect on the accomplishments of your Chapter for year 2007 and provide a taste of upcoming Dallas
Chapter ONS events for 2008.
In 2007 the Chapter sponsored one member to attend the 32 nd Annual ONS Congress April 24-27 in
Las Vegas. This was within itself an accomplishment because this scholarship resulted in the member agreeing to serve the chapter as our current newsletter editor and website coordinator.
Our program committee again provided us with many varied and interesting programs and venues.
Year 2008 will start with our 25 th Anniversary dinner
January 22 nd at the Royal Oaks Country Club featuring Ann Collins-Hattery, RN, MS, AOCN, ARNP one of our founding memories. Ann has accomplished so much in her career as an advanced practice nurse in oncology and is always an engaging speaker. She is presently the Director of Mercy
Regional Cancer Center. Ann will present, “What
We’ve Done Right!” Her presentation will discuss technical and clinical advancements in oncology nursing over the past 25 years and project future directions to further the art and science of oncology nursing.
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Inside this issue:
President’s Corner 1
Member Feature 3
CCC Corner 4
National News 5
Scholarship Info 6
Thanks Teresa Hill
& Genetech 6
2007 Dallas
Chapter ONS
Board 7
Genes & Things 8-9
September Student
Night 10
Dallas Chapter
ONS Member
Authors First Book
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We are making some changes to our meeting schedule for 2008 returning to our previous format of one chapter meeting per
month on the fourth Tuesday of each month! Many of our members have expressed a desire to return to this format from previous years. We also acknowledge our longstanding relationship with our wonderful representatives from the pharmaceutical industry to that end will be adding educational
opportunities posting to our web site so our members can take advantage of these extra events.
Our programs committee has put together a varied agenda of programs for next year ranging from hyperbaric treatments to an evening of fun while we learn all about the ONS Putting Evidence into Practice initiative and much more.
As we head into this holiday season I am reminded of some of the many things I am thankful for – my family and friends, the patients and families we are privileged to serve, living in North Texas where the weather is finally turning cooler and as always, being on my side of the stethoscope! I hope each of you have a pleasant holiday season, celebrating w/ good friends and family and taking some time to celebrate yourselves and the excellent work you do everyday. See you in 2008! Nancy

Wednesday November 14 th 6:30 PM
Nobu Restaurant
400 Crescent Court
Dallas, TX 75201 (214) 252-7000
“Optimizing Response to Achieve a Treatment Interval in Multiple Myeloma
Henry Fund, M.D., Director of BMT at Rush Medical Center, Chicago,
RSVP to
Laura DeLa Garza
Mellennium Pharmaceuticals
817-999-8179
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Elaine S. DeMeyer, RN, MSN, AOCN is the
Dallas Chapter membership feature for this edition.
Are you interested in being featured or who would you like to feature?
Contact Millie Arnold, editor at
Elaine is married and has two children, Stephanie age 10 and Philip age 6. She has been a member of national ONS and the Dallas Chapter ONS for over
12 years. Elaine’s career in oncology nursing has ranged from direct patient care to nurse educator and presently she is the President and CEO of
Creative Cancer Concepts, Inc. (CCC), Rockwall, TX.
Elaine started this company in 2002 with much help from the Dallas oncology community.
CCC was developed for oncology healthcare professional to provide latest information on the continuing needs of oncology patients. CCC is launching a new magazine, Beyond Oncology Education & Inspiration. This magazine mildreda@baylorhealth.edu
Or
Michelle Gray, co-editor at michelle.gray@usoncology.com will be provided to 20,000 US oncology nurses. Two Dallas Chapter ONS nurses (featured below) participated in articles for the magazine and are featured as “Lone Star Makeovers” and evaluated various shoes for a product testing article .
Dallas Chapter ONS members Jayna Sosland and BiJue Chang “Lone Star Makeovers”
Creative Cancer Concepts, Inc. has received a generous educational grant o provide continuing nursing education through a CCC developed program entitled, “Pearls of Wisdom from People Living with Cancer…Improving the Management o Chemotherapy Induced
Nausea.” This fully funded program will be presented Tuesday, November 27 th at no cost to the Dallas Chapter ONS members and will provide 1.3 contact hours.
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New! Advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma Webcast
Don't miss this webcast recorded from a satellite symposium presented at the 2007 ONS 32nd
Annual Congress, in Las Vegas. Highlights include an evidence-based discussion of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), including treatment and symptom management strategies. Learn more about this superb webcast at http://www.ons.org/ceCentral/types/kidney/index.shtml
.
New! Updated Chemo Handbook - Available Soon!
Newly updated and expanded to reflect new research and clinical advances, Clinical Guide to
Antineoplastic Therapy: A Chemotherapy Handbook (Second Edition) provides you with the detailed information you need on all facets of chemotherapy administration. Order now and save
20% through a prepublication discount. http://esource.ons.org/ProductDetails.aspx?sku=INPU0573
Take Advantage of ONS Partner Products and Services
Your ONS membership entitles you to a suite of additional member benefits from companies like Verizon, Amica, Bank of America, and Dell. Learn more about the products and services available from these leading vendors at http://www.ons.org/membership/join/memberBenefits.shtml
.
Metastatic Colorectal Cancer (mCRC) Patient Education Package Available
Send your patients with mCRC home with magnets and tearsheets from ONSEdge. Go to http://esource.ons.org/ProductDetails.aspx?sku=KT030001 for more information and to order.
New! What's Blasting Off in CML?
This three-part series reveals itself in podcasts (and upcoming webcast) that reviews the history of CML and describes its treatment and patient adherence to therapy, in detail. The information gained from this comprehensive material will substantially increase your understanding of CML and help you to better evaluate and treat your patients. Visit http://onsopcontent.ons.org/meetings/podcasts/ to learn more.
ONS Web Site Clinical Trial Resources
The ONS Clinical Trials Resource Areas (ONS Clinician Clinical Trial Resource Area and Patient
Clinical Trial Resource Area) provide access to information on clinical trials including educational materials and programs, clinical trial search engines and the ONS clinical trial special interest group virtual community.
Clinical Trials Resource area: http://www.ons.org/clinical/treatment/clinicaltrials/index.shtml
Clinical Trials Patient Resource area: http://www.ons.org/patientEd/Treatment/clinical.shtml
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
Believe it or not this Dallas Chapter membership benefit isn’t fully utilized!
If you have a funding need the Dallas Chapter is here for you as a member and wants to provide monetary support for oncology nursing endeavors. You are encouraged to take a minute and look at the scholarship application process. It’s easy! The application along with instructions is conveniently posted for easy accessibility.
The Dallas Chapter ONS offers
.
How to Apply:
 Open your chapter’s virtual website
 Click on “News”
 Click on “Scholarship”
_____________________________________________________________________________
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
 for presenting “Lung Cancer Update 2007” at the October
Dallas Chapter meeting.
Teresa Hill, RN, NP, AOCN, etc, etc, etc.
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President Nancy Thompson nancy.thompson@cigna.com
Immediate Past-President Jeanice Janes janes58@sbcglobal.net
Secretary Wanda Strange wanda.strange@usoncology.com
Treasurer Joni Mokry joni.mokry@usoncology.com
Director-at-Large Tara Fedric fedric@veison.net
Director-at-Large Myra Johnson jmtg@cebridge.net
Program Committee Chair - Linda Cole mpcole@sbcglobal.net
Membership Committee Chair - Dorothy Strong dstron@parknet.pmh.org
Jane Cauley janecauley@mhd.com
AND your new Nominating committee chair- BiJue Chang Bijue@baylorhealth.edu
Scholarship Committee Chair Becky Goodman rebecca.goodman@usoncology.com
Newsletter Editors Michelle Gray michelle.gray@usoncology.com
Millie Arnold mildreda@baylorhealth.edu
How to become a dallas chapter ons board member
VOLUNTEER … EXPRESS AN INTEREST … RUN FOR OFFICE ! talk to one your board members
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Oncology nurses wear many hats! This issue of the DALLASCHAPTER newsletter features a new standing article called Genes & Things. These articles will provide oncology nurses current information about genetics and cancer. Experts in the field of genetics will rotate writing about different topics within cancer genetics to assist oncology nurses with genetics-related issues. The first featured author is Sara Pirzadeh who is a genetic counselor at Moncrief Cancer Resources/UT Southwestern Medical
Center. As a genetic counselor, Sara sees patients with a personal and/or family history of different cancers (especially breast, ovarian, and colon cancers) for genetic risk assessment and testing. Sara has expressed an interest to serve as a resource for those nurses working with physicians that order genetic testing on a regular basis. As Sara states, “There can be issues within the genetic testing process that are not as straightforward as they may seem.
”
There are many examples of complexities within genetic testing that are even puzzling for the most experienced of genetics professionals. Sara illustrates this point with a case example:
In 2001, patient A.B. was a 45-year-old woman of Caucasian descent diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer at ages 40 and 43, respectively. Of her 3 sisters and 5 brothers, one sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 50. The patient’s mother was diagnosed with unilateral breast cancer at age 55, and one of the patient’s two maternal aunts was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer at age 60. Computerized cancer genetic risk assessment models estimated A.B.’s risk to harbor a BRCA mutation to be as high as 98%. BRCA1 and 2 testing was ordered for A.B. and was negative. The patient came back to the clinic because her daughter, age 31, is very concerned about her risks for developing cancer and wants to know if anything else can be done to define her genetic risk. The question: is this patient a true negative?
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Due to the strong personal and family history of breast and ovarian cancer (age of onset
< 50 years, bilaterality of cancer, presence of ovarian cancer), the clinician did not believe that this patient was likely to be a true negative. The most common reasons include:
1. Genetic technologies still have limitations. In this case (and considering testing was conducted 6 years ago), it is very possible that there was a mutation within
BRCA1 or BRCA2 that was unable to be discovered due to the shortcomings of genetic technology at the time. Currently, approximately 10% of hereditary breast/ovarian cancer syndrome patients cannot be identified through genetic testing.
2. There are likely other hereditary breast/ovarian cancer genes that have not been discovered as of yet (i.e. BRCA3, BRCA4) that cause increased cancer risks in some families.
3. Other genes could be causing the breast cancer. It is believed that there are other hereditary breast cancer genes that are currently unidentified.
Since 2001, research has shown that 10-15%* of cancer-causing mutations within
BRCA1 are DNA sequence rearrangements (deletions, duplications, etc) that cannot be detected using the laboratory technology utilized for more simple genetic alterations
(BRCA2 rearrangements seem to be rare, but have been documented). In addition to
DNA sequencing, Myriad Genetics Laboratories (MGL) introduced a panel to test for the
5 most common rearrangements known within BRCA1 in 2002. Since that time, further research has shown that there are rare larger rearrangements in BRCA1 and BRCA2 that can be discovered through a new testing methodology available (called BART, or
B RAC A nalysis R earrangement T est) at MGL as of August 2006.
The clinician ordered the 5 rearrangement panel and BART testing to be performed. A.B. did have a BRCA1 deletion that was unable to be found in 2001. Her daughter subsequently wanted genetic testing (as her risk was 50%), and her test result was negative. Her test result decreased her breast and ovarian cancer risks to baseline population risk levels, and her anxiety was significantly alleviated as well. This case is an excellent example of how genetic risk information and testing technologies for breast cancer and other cancer genes have evolved over the span of only a few years, and it demonstrates the real necessity of genetic follow-up for patients with striking personal and family histories of cancer.
*Human Mutation 2005; 25: 415-422.
Sara Pirzadeh, M.S., Genetic Counselor
Moncrief Cancer Resources/UT Southwestern Medical Center
(817) 838-4871
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September 18 th Student Night at Gilda’s Club
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On August 23, 1984 when Wanda’s only child, ten-yearold Ginger, was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma , the lives of Ginger, Wanda, and her husband, Kerry were altered forever. Wanda’s book, Refined , is a tribute to
God’s sustaining grace and a testimony to the faith of family, friends, medical staff and support groups whose love, encouragement and presence nourished the
Strange family during every phase of the most difficult time of their lives.
Refined is a survivor’s story of heartache and hope written from a mother’s perspective. Though only 82 pages in length, this book brings a powerful message. Wanda recounts the challenges, pitfalls and triumphs as she relates the almost daily experiences she and her family encountered along this journey.
Even if the cancer never enters your life, adversity will, so you are encouraged to read this book and gain insight into responding to life’s trials. A favorite line is, “On those most difficult days, perhaps God’s greatest gift is the grace which allows us to just put one foot in front of the other, to keep on keeping on.”
Wanda commutes from Bluff Dale, Texas to Dallas (2 hour drive and 100 miles one way) and is an oncology nurse with
U.S. Oncology. She is presently working on a second manuscript Reflections of a Texas Commuter.
Wanda’s prayer is
“that you will be uplifted and strengthen ed by my story of hope and
God’s miraculous, sustaining power.”
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Refined is available directly from Wanda at a cost of $14.95 or through her website wstrange@lipan.net
or www.freewebs.com/wandastrange
The book can also be ordered through the following websites:
Publishamerica.com
Barnes&noble.com
Amazon.com
Pearls of Wisdom from People Living with Cancer
Elaine DeMeyer, RN, MSN, AOCN
RSVP to 972-961-4665 or 866-238-7032 or www.creativecancerconsepts.com
http://dallas.vc.ons.org/file_depot/0-10000000/10000-20000/16826/folder/35091/Pearls+of+Wisdom.pdf
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