25th Cancer Nursing & Nurse Practitioners Conference July 17-18, 2017 Lisbon, Portugal

Veterinary oncology is a subspecialty of veterinary medicine that deals with cancer diagnosis and treatment in animals. Cancer is a major cause of death in pet animals. In one study, 45% of the dogs that reached 10 years of age or older died of cancer. Skin tumors are the most frequently diagnosed type of tumor in domestic animals for two reasons: 1. constant exposure of animal skin to the sun and external environment, 2. skin tumors are easy to see because they are on the outside of the animal. Companion animals such as dogs and cats suffer from many of the same types of cancer as humans. 

Recent progress in biological therapies has widened the scale of therapeutic targets for treatment of cancer with the identification of tumor cell specific genes. Immunotherapies/ biologics are emerging as potential therapies to find the permanent cure for various cancer types. Amongst various biologics, drugs based on monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have gained significant attention in recent years due to their high efficacy. Global cancer drugs market accounted for $78,238.9 million in 2015, and is forecast to generate revenue of $111,938.4 million by 2020.

Doctors and scientists are always looking for better ways to treat patients with a tumor. To make scientific advances, doctors create research studies involving volunteers, called clinical trials. Many clinical trials are focused on new treatments, evaluating whether a new treatment is safe, effective, and possibly better than the current (standard) treatment. These types of studies evaluate new drugs, different combinations of existing treatments, new approaches to radiation therapy or surgery, and new methods of treatment. However, there is no guarantee that the new treatment will be safe, effective, or better than a standard treatment. There are also clinical trials that study new ways to ease symptoms and side effects during treatment and managing the late effects that may occur after treatment. 

Nuclear medicine imaging uses small amounts of radioactive materials called radiotracers that are typically injected into the blood stream, inhaled or swallowed. The radiotracer travels through the area being examined and gives off energy in the form of gamma rays which are detected by a special camera and a computer to create images of the inside of your body. Nuclear medicine imaging provides unique information that often cannot be obtained using other imaging procedures and offers the potential to identify disease in its earliest stages.

Epidemiology of cancer is the study of the factors that affecting cancer. The study of epidemiology of cancer uses epidemiological methods to find the cause and to identify of cancer with the developed improved treatments. The leading risk factors are tobacco smoking, which cause lung cancer, mouth, and throat cancer; drinking alcohol, which cause oral, breast, oesophageal cancer liver and other cancers; physical inactivity, a diet low in fruit and vegetables which can cause the risk of risk of colon, breast, and possibly other cancers. 

Cancer drug targets against malignant cells by several mechanisms. Tissue-specific gene delivery using immune liposomes has been experimented with brain, and breast cancer tissue. Anti-cancer drug development is necessary to treat cancer and prevents development of a cancer. Vaccines that treat cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines. There are currently no vaccines which is having the ability to prevent all cancers. The use of nanotechnology in cancer treatment offers some possibility of destroying tumors with minimal damage to healthy tissue with the detection and elimination of tumor cells. 

Cancer nanotechnology is the burgeoning field of treatment of cancer with nanotechnology. It is applicable for cancer diagnosis, imaging, prognosis and therapy.  The nanoparticles selectively accumulate in the tumor cell by the mechanism of the enhanced permeability and retention effect. Thus, nanoparticles are suitable for delivering diagnostic and the imaging agents, chemo and gene drugs to the tumor. Nanoparticles also offer an amplification mechanism for bio analytical detection and sensor devices for cancer markers. The tumor microenvironment is the cellular environment in which the tumor exists. .

A cancer biomarker can be a process substance that indicates the presence of cancer in the body. It may be a molecule secreted by tumour cells or a particular response of the body because of the presence of cancer. Biomarkers maybe genetic, epigenetic, proteomic, glycomic, or imaging. They can be used for cancer diagnosis, prognosis, medicine, epidemiology of cancer. Those biomarkers that are particularly associated with mutations offer a quantitative way to determine when individuals are predisposed to particular types of cancers. Mutations of genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2 are advanced breast cancer biomarkers, and mutations on genes like KRAS, p53, EGFR, erbB2 are used for colorectal, oesophageal, liver, and pancreatic cancer.

The formation of cancer cells from normal cells is called carcinogenesis. The changes at different levels like cellular, genetic and epigenetic that ultimately proceed a cell to uncontrolled cell division is the process of carcinogenesis. Mutation, epimutation of genetic material of normal cells, cell proliferations causes the carcinogenesis. When the genetic information (DNA/RNA) of an organism is changed in a particular stable manner the process is called mutagenesis. Mutagenesis may arise due to natural mutagens or artificial mutagens that induce changes to the DNA.

Cancer cells are those cells whose cell division and growth is unregulated. When the natural killer cells fail to recognize them, they start malignant. When cancer cells start spread from one part to another it is called metastasis. Tumour cell starts its growth in tumour microenvironment which includes blood cell, immune cells, fibroblasts, lymphocytes etc. Symptoms of different cancers are depending upon the location of tumour. Cancer stem cells are stem cells which have the ability to give rise all type of cancer cells.

Organ/Tumour specific cancers are cancers named basing on the location of cancer in the body organ. Cancer can affect just about every organ in the human body. Each type of cancer is unique with its own causes, symptoms, and methods of treatment. Lung cancer was the most common cancer worldwide in men contributing nearly 17% of the total number of new cases diagnosed in 2012 and became an important topic for World Cancer Conferences. There are more than 200 different types of cancer, but Breast cancer, Head & Neck cancer, Blood cancer, lung cancer and leukaemia are diagnosed with the greatest frequency. Lung cancer, also known as carcinoma of the lung or pulmonary carcinoma, is a malignant lung tumour characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Cancer genetics is now one of the fastest expanding medical specialties. However, some people inherit mutation in the germ line. The mutations occur in two classes of cellular genes: oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes. 

Oncology nurses practice in a variety of settings including acute care hospitals, ambulatory care clinics, private oncologists offices, radiation therapy facilities, home healthcare agencies, and community agencies. The roles of the oncology nurses vary from the intensive care focus of bone marrow transplantation to the community focus of cancer screening, detection, and prevention. Health includes motivating people to embrace behaviours that both improve their emotional and physical quality of life and reduce their risk for premature morbidity and mortality. Late effects vary from one cancer survivor to the next. They can range from very mild to serious. Medical experts can’t always predict if or when they will occur. Some effects might improve or go away with time such as anaemia. Patients with advanced cancer are willing to pay more for all aspects of a good end-of-life experience compared with healthy older adults. Both groups are willing to pay more to be pain free and to die at home.

Breast Cancer is the most common cause of death in women. We first need to understand how cancer develops in the body for reducing breast cancer risk. Current understanding of the biology of breast cancer is very important and its relevance to treating and preventing the disease. Breast cancer is not a single disease. For example, understanding that breast tissue of girls and young women is especially sensitive to cancer causative agents can help direct risk reduction efforts to these groups. Making sense of cancer denotes taking a step toward more apprised decisions about our bodies, ourselves and our environment. 

Anti-Cancer monoclonal antibodies can be targeted against malignant cells by several mechanisms. Tissue-specific gene delivery using immune liposomes has also been achieved in brain, and breast cancer tissue. Antibody-directed enzyme pro drug therapy involves the application of cancer associated monoclonal antibodies which are linked to a drug-activating enzyme. Subsequent systemic administration of a non-toxic agent results in its conversion to a toxic drug, and resulting in a cytotoxic effect which can be targeted at malignant cells. A cancer vaccine is a vaccine that either treats existing cancer or prevents development of a cancer. Vaccines that treat existing cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines. There are currently no vaccines able to prevent all cancers. However vaccines against some oncoviruses have proven extremely effective. Treatment often fails when cancer becomes resistant to anti-cancer drugs. 

Companion diagnostics is segmented on the basis of its use for indications such as oncology, cardiovascular conditions, central nervous system indications, inflammation and virology. Oncology is the highest revenue generating segment, as majority of the companion diagnostics have been developed for detection of various cancer biomarkers. The key driver for this market is an increase in research and development of targeted drugs, which require a corresponding companion diagnostic. 

Cancer research often makes the biggest headlines at the point when it begins to benefit patients – through the success, for example, of molecularly targeted drugs or the new immunotherapies. The Institute of Cancer Research, London, is very well known for this kind of ‘translational research’ – where we move new research ideas and approaches out of the laboratory and into the clinic for the first time. This in turn leads on to later-stage clinical research, where the benefit for large numbers of people with cancer is eventually demonstrated in larger trials. Fundamental cancer research is crucial because it leads to incremental and sometimes spectacular advances in our understanding of the molecular basis of malignant disease.

The sectors covered are colony stimulating factors (CSFs), interferon Alfa and gamma products, interleukin products and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, including antibody conjugates, cancer vaccines and other cancer treatment immunology products. Vaccines against HPV and hepatitis B are included; while such vaccines act only indirectly against cancer, they do serve to protect against the disease. Stem cell transplant (also called peripheral blood stem cell transplant) is a treatment to try to cure some types of cancer, such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. You have very high doses of chemotherapy, sometimes with whole body radiotherapy. 

Molecular Cancer Therapeutics will focus on basic research that has implications for cancer therapeutics in Experimental Cancer. Despite the fact that new technologies and strategies often fail to identify well-established cancer biomarkers and show a bias toward the identification of high-abundance molecules, these technological advances have the capacity to revolutionize biomarker discovery.  Cancer immunotherapy (immuno-oncology) is the use of the immune system to treat cancer .The study of the tumour metabolism, also known as tumour metabolome describes the different characteristic metabolic changes in tumour cells. 

A cancer diagnosis and its treatment can be overwhelming. Usually patients and family members have many questions and concerns about the disease and the treatment. The supportive care program helps patients and family members deal with the physical and emotional distress caused by the cancer diagnosis and treatment. The less distress patients have, the more energy they can direct toward recovery.

Comprehensive supportive care services require the expertise of an interdisciplinary team in order to adequately assess and treat the complex needs of cancer patients and their families. This Session Includes Art therapy, Child psychiatry, Music Therapy, Nutrition & Supplements, Physical, occupational, & speech therapies, Parent link program, Social work, Cancer Rehabilitation & Rehabilitation, Diet and exercise and Spiritual Counselling.

The majority of people with cancer will experience pain at some time or another. The pain can result from the cancer itself, or from the cancer's treatment. In addition, some people who have been cured of their cancer can continue to suffer from pain. Cancer pain, or the discomfort that stems from cancer and its treatment, can be controlled most of the time, in which a nurse plays a important role. There are many different medicines and methods available to control cancer pain. People who have cancer and are feeling pain need to inform their doctor immediately. The earlier pain treatment is started, the more effective it may be. Comprehensive pain assessment is one of the most important initial steps for successful pain.

It is the term for medical products and practices that are not part of standard medical care.Some CAM therapies have undergone careful evaluation and have found to be safe and effective. However there are others that have been found to be ineffective or possibly harmful. Time and funding issues, Problems finding institutions and cancer researchers to work with on the studies and Regulatory issues

CAM therapies need to be evaluated with the same long and careful research process used to evaluate standard treatments. Standard cancer treatments have generally been studied for safety and effectiveness through an intense scientific process that includes clinical trials with large numbers of patients. 

The landscape of Cancer treatment has dramatically changed over the last four decades. The age when surgery and radiotherapy were the only effective way to fight tumour growth has ended. A complex scenario where the molecular features of tumours seem to be the cornerstone of any therapy is now emerging. Following, we focus on the understanding of the value of systemic treatment and on an up-date on the novel, up-coming therapies of the current targeted therapy, age, including new antibodies, small molecules, anti angiogenics and viral therapy.