Carmen E. Guerra, MD, MSCE, on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Clinical Trials: Expert Commentary
2023 ASCO Annual Meeting
Carmen E. Guerra, MD, MSCE, of the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center, discusses three key abstracts presented at ASCO: strategies to increase accrual of underrepresented populations in Alliance NCTN trials, how patient-clinician education can strengthen partnerships and improve diversity in breast and lung cancer trials, and mediators of racial and ethnic inequities in clinical trial participation among U.S. patients with cancer from 2011 to 2022 (Abstracts 6509, 6510, 6511).
The ASCO Post Staff
Sebastian Stintzing, MD, of the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, discusses results from the phase III FIRE-4 study, which showed that liquid biopsy is clinically relevant in verifying mutational status in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer and is efficacious in first-line treatment of FOLFIRI and cetuximab for patients with RAS wild-type disease (Abstract 3507).
The ASCO Post Staff
Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, of Melanoma Institute Australia and The University of Sydney, discusses new data showing that patients with resected stage IIB/C melanoma who were treated with adjuvant nivolumab had prolonged recurrence-free survival compared with placebo across all biomarker subgroups. The baseline biomarkers most predictive of prolonged recurrence-free survival with nivolumab were high interferon gamma score, high tumor mutational burden, CD8 T-cell infiltration, and low C-reactive protein (Abstract 9504).
The ASCO Post Staff
Rana R. McKay, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, and Brian I. Rini, MD, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discuss the 5-year follow-up results with the combination of a checkpoint inhibitor plus a VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor as first-line treatment for patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Pembrolizumab plus axitinib continued to demonstrate improved survival outcomes as well as overall response rate vs sunitinib for patients with previously untreated disease (Abstract LBA4501).
The ASCO Post Staff
Nirav N. Shah, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, discusses the efficacy and safety of pirtobrutinib, a highly selective, noncovalent BTK inhibitor, studied for more than 3 years in the BRUIN trial. The results showed that the use of pirtobrutinib continues to have durable efficacy and a favorable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma and prior BTK inhibitor therapy. Responses were observed in patients with high-risk disease features, including blastoid/pleomorphic variants, elevated Ki67 index, and TP53 mutations (Abstract 7514).
The ASCO Post Staff
Eunice S. Wang, MD, of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Gregory Roloff, MD, of the University of Chicago, discuss data that are the first to demonstrate post–FDA approval efficacy and toxicity rates of brexucabtagene autoleucel in adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Although the data may confirm high response rates associated with this agent, they also highlight the need for interventions to reduce associated toxicities (Abstract 7001).
