By Rhonda Kalyn, BC Cancer Agency, British Columbia
Travel Grant Award Winner
"I had the opportunity to attend my first MASCC/ISOO symposium thanks to a grant from CAPhO. The 2010 symposium was held in Vancouver from June 24 to 26, at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver. This year's theme was "Communication: The Key to Care".
Over 800 health care professionals traveled from 51 countries around the world to attend the symposium and share ideas and research. Some of the professions represented at the conference included oncologists, nurses, dentists, social workers, dieticians, and educators. Pharmacists were also well represented as speakers, study group members, poster authors, conference planners and delegates. The multidisciplinary approach of the MASCC 2010 Symposium was a good example of communication at its best.
Several speakers addressed the theme of the Symposium: "Communication: The Key to Care". Simon Sutcliffe, former BC Cancer Agency President, helped to open the conference with a discussion of the importance of international communication in cancer care. Mario de Lemos, Provincial Drug Information Coordinator for the BC Cancer Agency, provided a pharmacist's perspective on communicating with patients about Complementary and Alternative Medications (CAMs) using a structured approach.
New ideas for improving communication were also presented at the symposium. Dr. Martin Tattersall reported on his experience with recorded oncology consultations in Australia. Since patients cannot absorb everything they are told by physicians, they are provided with a recording of the consultation. Dr. Amy Abernethy of North Carolina presented another innovative method for communication using the latest in technology: patients reported their symptoms using electronically patient-reported outcomes (ePRO).
Visit the MASCC website (
www.mascc.org) for highlights of the symposium, abstracts, awards and more. The MASCC Website also provides information about the 2011 symposium being held in Athens, Greece, June 23-25. Be sure to communicate that date with your colleagues."
By Lori Gagnon, Cross Cancer Institute, Alberta
Travel Grant Award Winner"This past June, I was fortunate to be able to attend the MASCC/ISOO 2010 International Symposium, which took place in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. The multinational aspect to the conference was evident when I saw my name tag read as Lori Gagnon - Canada and the concierge at the hotel commented that I was the closest to arrive thus far. The objectives of the symposium were to educate and inform an international audience of health care professionals on methods to minimize therapy-induced side effects and the symptoms and complications associated with cancer.
The theme of this year's symposium revolved around communication being the key to care. The importance of use of language when communicating with the cancer patient was discussed and also how personalization is meaningful to the cancer patient. This theme remained throughout such topics as pancreatic cancer updates, neurotoxicities, complementary and alternative medicines, supportive care in the developing world, CINV and oral complications.
Part of my interest in attending this conference was to determine what role the pharmacist has in supportive care. Through connecting with fellow pharmacists, viewing poster abstracts and attending presentations, I believe the pharmacist is well suited for facilitating research, implementing guidelines and research, as well as preventing and managing symptoms. Numerous speakers indicated that a multidisciplinary team approach was the best way to provide excellence in supportive care and that patient teaching was of great value requiring quality time.
MASCC maintains numerous study groups in a variety of areas of supportive care in which members can participate. My areas of interest are in palliative care and more recently in antiemetics. The conference provided opportunities for the study groups to meet, which was a highlight of the conference for me. Our palliative care study group discussed ways to improve transition of patients to palliative care, the need to develop prognostic tools to supplement symptom assessment tools for assessing symptom burden and development of a survey on patterns of care at the end of life comparing competencies in different countries. The antiemetic study group introduced the new MASCC Antiemetic guidelines and discussion revolved around how to implement them.
I would like to thank CAPhO for providing me this opportunity and I encourage other pharmacists to become a member of MASCC if supportive care in oncology is of interest to you."
By Pamela Yafai, Horizon Health Network, New Brunswick
Travel Grant Award Winner"I was very honoured to be selected as a recipient of a CAPhO grant to attend the MASCC/ISOO 2010 International symposium, held recently in Vancouver, BC. Attending this conference provided me with an opportunity to gain new and valuable knowledge in current best practices in supportive care of oncology patients, and I hope to incorporate much of what I have learned into my current clinical pharmacy practice.
This was a wonderful opportunity to learn about emerging evidence in my pharmacy specialty through lectures, workshops, study groups, and poster sessions delivered by international leaders in the field. In particular, I was very interested to learn about the emerging evidence for alternate, evidence-based scheduling of antiemetics currently approved by Health Canada, as well as the off-label use of other classes of drugs for this purpose (e.g. olanzapine). The recent research on improved patient outcomes seen with the 5-HT antagonist palonosetron, compared to other agents in this class was of especially great interest to me. I look forward to learning the results of ongoing work in this area which may be eventually applicable to our Canadian patients.
Another highlight of the conference, in my experience, was learning about the best research presented this year at the ASCO and CANO conferences. I also enjoyed learning skills for providing more effective patient counseling in the area of complementary and alternative medicines, and hearing about their use in other provinces and countries.
In my current clinical practice, I am responsible for providing pharmaceutical care for oncology patients receiving treatment for many different indications and disease states. Pancreatic cancer is a subject in which I had hoped to improve my understanding and knowledge, and the plenary session on this topic was very helpful in helping me to reach this education goal. The sessions relating to hemostasis and thrombosis as well as mucoepidermal toxicity were extremely beneficial and applicable to the vast majority of patients that I encounter.
Meeting other health care professionals on an international level who share the common goal of optimizing health outcomes for oncology patients was a very meaningful experience. It was especially wonderful to meet other oncology pharmacists from Australia, the UK, and the US at the pharmacists' gathering. At the poster session, I had the chance to meet researchers around the world who were glad to discuss and share with me the results of their initiatives. As a result, I am more aware of potential work which can be done in the area of supportive care in oncology, work which I hope to be involved with in the near future.
I am fortunate to have had the chance to attend the MASCC 2010 symposium and would like to thank the CAPhO Awards Committee for providing me with such a worthwhile educational opportunity."

