A Phase II single-arm trial of palonosetron for the prevention of acute and delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in malignant glioma patients receiving multidose irinotecan in combination with bevacizumab.

Dr. Mary Lou Affronti is a Professor who joined the Duke University School of Nursing faculty in February 2014. She earned both her DNP and her MSN at DUSON, and additionally earned a Master’s degree in Health Science in Clinical Research from the Duke University School of Medicine. She holds a Clinical Associate faculty appointment in the Duke University Medical Center Department of Surgery /Neurosurgery. She is also Primary Investigator and Adult Nurse Practitioner at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center in the Duke Cancer Institute.

Dr. Affronti has been a part of Duke’s oncology clinical and research community for almost three and a half decades, and has been associated with DUSON since 1989 in a variety of roles, including clinical associate, guest lecturer, preceptor, and clinical instructor. She was instrumental in developing the oncology curriculum for DUSON nurse practitioner students. In 2005, she was honored by the Friends of Nursing at Duke with the Evelyn Morgan Award for Excellence in Oncology Nursing. Dr. Affronti’s DNP capstone on adherence to antiemetic guidelines in patients with malignant glioma, received the Outstanding Capstone Doctoral Project Award in 2013, was published in Supportive Care in Cancer and was cited in a 2016 New England Journal of Medicine Antiemetic Review Article. Dr. Affronti was the Recipient of the Southern Nursing Research Society Clinical Research Award in 2018.

Dr. Affronti has been developing and leading therapeutic and supportive care research while seeing patients as a nurse practitioner, and is continuing both her clinical and research activities at the Brain Tumor Center. She has a strong interest in the development and testing of therapies and supportive care for primary brain tumors as a currently a co-principal or principal investigator on many Phase II clinical trials at the Duke Brain Tumor Center.

Current research interests have application to the design and analysis of cancer clinical trials. Specifically, interests include the use of time-dependent covariables within survival models, the design of phase II cancer clinical trials which minimize some of the logistical problems associated with their conduct, and the analysis of longitudinal studies with informative censoring (in particular, quality of life studies of patients with advanced cancer).

Katy Peters, MD, PhD, FAAN is a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center (PRTBTC) at Duke.   Her academic medical career started at Stanford University School of Medicine, receiving an MD and Ph.D. in Cancer Biology.  After completing a neurology residency at Johns Hopkins University and a fellowship in cognitive neurosciences, Katy joined the PRTBTC as a neuro-oncology fellow.  In 2009, she became a faculty member at PRTBTC.  With a fantastic team of nursing and advanced practice providers, she actively sees and cares for patients with primary brain tumors.  Her research interests include supportive care for brain cancer patients, cognitive dysfunction in cancer patients, and physical function and activity of brain cancer patients.   While she runs clinical trials to treat primary brain tumors, her key interest is on clinical trials that focus on improving brain tumor patients' quality of life and cognition.   In 2019, the PRTBTC designated her as the Director of Supportive Care, thus furthering the PRTBTC and her committee to better the quality of life for brain tumor patients.   She is active in teaching medical school students, residents, fellows, and advanced practice providers and is the Program Director of the PRTBRC neuro-oncology fellowship.     She is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the United Council of Neurologic Subspecialties for neuro-oncology.