{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Episode 412: Pharmacology 101: Cytokines","description":" \u201cThey are small, powerful little nuggets. They are actually small signaling proteins that our immune cells use to communicate. They really help regulate immune activation or inflammation and even the growth and survival of immune cells. When cytokines are used therapeutically in oncology, they help to stimulate immune cells such as T cells or natural killer cells to better recognize and attack cancer cells,\u201d Maribel Pereiras, PharmD, BCPS, BCOP, clinical pharmacy specialist at the John Theurer Cancer Center of Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS\u00ae, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the cytokine drug class. Music Credit: \u201cFireflies and Stardust\u201d by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0  Earn 0.5 contact hours (including 30 minutes of pharmacotherapeutic content) of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by April 24, 2027. The planners and faculty for this episode have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose. ONS is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center\u2019s Commission on Accreditation. Learning outcome: Nurses caring for people with cancer require knowledge of cytokines to provide appropriate education and to safely administer related therapies. Episode Notes  Complete this evaluation for free NCPD.  ONS Podcast\u2122 episodes: Pharmacology 101 series Episode 256: Cancer Symptom Management Basics: Hematologic Complications Episode 196: Oncologic Emergencies 101: Bleeding and Thrombosis ONS Voice articles: FDA Approves Nogapendekin Alfa Inbakicept-Pmln for BCG-Unresponsive Non\u2013Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Manage Cancer-Associated Anemia With Erythropoietin-Stimulating Agents Oncology Drug Reference Sheet: Motixafortide ONS books: Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy Guidelines and Recommendations for Practice (second edition) and 2024 Drug Supplement Clinical Guide to Antineoplastic Therapy: A Chemotherapy Handbook (fourth edition) Guide to Cancer Immunotherapy (second edition) Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing article: Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy for Melanoma: Nursing Considerations What\u2019s Old Is New Again, Unfortunately ONS Symptom Interventions Colony-Stimulating Factors Including Biosimilars for At-Risk Patients for Prevention of Infection: General Platelet Growth Factors for Prevention of Bleeding National Comprehensive Cancer Network To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities. To find resources for creating an ONS Podcast club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library. To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org. Highlights From This Episode \u201cCytokines are actually among some of the earliest forms of immunotherapy used in the treatment of cancer, and it really goes back to the 1980s and the 1990s. We\u2019re talking therapies like interferon [alpha] or interleukin-2 that were used to stimulate the immune system, with the idea that they would recognize and attack cancer cells, particularly in diseases like metastatic melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. What made these therapies unique was that although the overall response rates were relatively modest, when patients did respond, those responses could be very durable and sometimes long lasting. And that observation was really important for the field of oncology, because it was part of the process that demonstrated that the immune system could potentially control cancer in really meaningful ways.\u201d TS 1:49 \u201cOne nice new example of an engineered cytokine is nogapendekin alfa inbakicept, which is quite the tongue twister to say. \u2026 This agent is really interesting because it\u2019s an engineered interleukin-15 receptor agonist that works on stimulating natural killer cells and CD8-positive T cells. And what makes this so interesting is that it\u2019s used in combination with a medication that probably some of us are familiar with\u2014good old BCG\u2014for patients specifically with invasive bladder cancer. The other really interesting thing about this new therapy is the fact that it is one of our first ones to be engineered in a combination fashion. So the nogapendekin alfa is combined with a receptor component that is called inbakicept. And what happens is it forms a complex to enhance signaling and prolong the activity of the cytokine.\u201d TS 7:50 \u201cWhen you\u2019re looking at our therapeutic cytokines, those tend to produce larger-scale systemic inflammatory effects leading to much more global side effect reactions, while your supportive care cytokines are more commonly associated with either bone marrow stimulation effects or hematologic changes.\u201d TS 14:01 \u201cRegardless of what type of cytokine therapy may you be using, across the board, early recognition of the symptoms and proactive supportive care are really important. And this is where many of our oncology nurses play such a critical role in identifying changes that are happening in real time to the patient\u2019s condition and helping to coordinate, relay information to the rest of the providing team so that timely interventions can occur for the best care of the patient.\u201d TS 18:01 \u201cThe other fascinating thing about these cytokines is that they\u2019re not being used as monotherapy anymore. They\u2019re now being looked at in combination with other therapies or even other immunotherapies like our checkpoint inhibitors. They\u2019re being looked at in the sense that they may be able to help expand and further activate immune cells that our current therapies rely on. And so it\u2019s really interesting that while cytokines were some of the earliest forms of cancer immunotherapy, they\u2019re now being reimagined as part of modern combination strategies designed to really further help enhance the immune responses against cancer.\u201d TS 29:08 ","author_name":"The ONS Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/onsvoice.libsyn.com\/website","html":"