As targeted therapies and oral agents continue to reshape breast cancer care, no single clinician can master every new option, according to Ellery Palanuk, MSN, RN, CN-BN, a breast cancer nurse navigator at Compass Oncology, a practice in The US Oncology Network, in the Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, area. In an interview with Oncology Nursing News, Palanuk said navigators can best serve patients by understanding enough to explain their care, answering what they can, and knowing when to bring in colleagues with more specialized expertise.<\/p>\n
How is the pace of change affecting breast cancer navigation?<\/p>\n
“I think the pace of change in breast cancer treatment is really incredible,” Palanuk said. “There are so many new targeted therapies, oral medications, different treatment options.”<\/p>\n
Recent Oncology Nursing News coverage reflects that shift. In October 2026, the FDA approved oral tucatinib (Tukysa)<\/a> with trastuzumab and pertuzumab as maintenance therapy for HER2-positive advanced breast cancer, an at-home regimen that calls on nurses to monitor liver function, manage diarrhea, and support adherence.1 An oncology nurse practitioner also recently described<\/a> how nurses’ roles are expanding to include oral therapy adherence and monitoring for antibody-drug conjugate toxicities as treatment becomes more tailored to tumor subtype.2<\/p>\n What does a nurse navigator need to know about new therapies?<\/p>\n Palanuk, who has worked as a nurse in the Portland area for more than 10 years, said the navigator role does not require mastery of every agent.<\/p>\n “I’m lucky as a nurse navigator, I don’t need to be the expert on every medication or every new treatment,” she said. “I just need to understand enough to help my patients understand what’s happening, answer the questions that I can for them, and know when and where to connect them for more specialized expertise.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As targeted therapies and oral agents continue to reshape breast cancer care, no single clinician can master every…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,85,46],"class_list":["post-658719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}