Episode 413: Intrarenal Administration for Upper Urothelial Tract Disease: The Oncology Nurse's Role

"We thought, from a nursing standpoint, 'What is our goal for doing this?' What we wanted was first, education of the patient. Can we successfully educate the patient to prepare them? Can we alleviate as much anxiety as possible so that they feel comfortable coming in and having this done? The second goal is to preserve kidney function throughout the treatment. To date, we've been successful with that. And the third goal is to complete treatment without infection," ONS member Chris Amoroso, BSN, RN, OCN®, registered nurse at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about intrarenal administration for upper urothelial tract disease. Music Credit: "Fireflies and Stardust" by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0  Earn 0.75 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by May 1, 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's Commission on Accreditation. Learning outcome: Nurses caring for people with cancer require knowledge of the different routes for drug administration, including intrarenal administration via a percutaneous nephrostomy. Episode Notes  Complete this evaluation for free NCPD.  ONS Podcast™ episodes: Episode 141: Care Coordination for Urothelial Cancer Episode 133: Treatment Advancements for Advanced or Metastatic Urothelial Cancer ONS Voice articles: A Primer on Urothelial Cancer Chemo Combo May Be a Bladder Cancer Treatment Alternative During BCG Shortage Nurses Are Key to Patients Navigating Genitourinary Cancers Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing articles: Avelumab First-Line Maintenance Therapy: Managing Patients With Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma Percutaneous Nephrostomy Infusion: Nursing Considerations for Treatment of Upper Urinary Tract Urothelial Carcinoma ONS Learning Libraries: Cancer of the Genitourinary Tract Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs 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 "In an office setting, it's not something we can really visualize. Patients will present with hematuria or flank pain, obstructions in the ureter, some hydronephrosis, they may be having a lot of urinary tract infections. And a routine cystoscopy in the office is not going to visualize the ureters. We can do biopsies like a ureteroscopy, a computerized tomography urogram, or a urine cytology. And those are usually the main ways of diagnosing upper tract disea