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
Cathy Eng, MD, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, and Thejus Jayakrishnan, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, discuss significant differences in the citrate cycle, a core pathway of cellular metabolism associated with colorectal cancer. Metabolomic differences impacted by environmental exposures (arginine biosynthesis and dietary red meat) were also noted, suggesting possible links with younger age of onset in this disease (Abstract 3510).
The ASCO Post Staff
Narjust Florez, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Filippo Gustavo Dall’Olio, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy, discuss circulating tumor DNA tumor fraction, and its link to survival in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with maintenance durvalumab in the UNICANCER SAFIR02-Lung/IFCT1301 trial. Tumor fraction was positive in 16% of patients randomly assigned to receive durvalumab in the study. This population seems to have a limited benefit from maintenance durvalumab after induction chemotherapy (Abstract 2516).
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
LaQuisa C. Hill, MD, of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital, discusses study findings showing that CD5 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells may induce clinical responses in heavily treated patients with relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Manufacturing CD5 CAR T cells with tyrosine kinase inhibitors seemed to improve their potency and antitumor activity (Abstract 7002).
The ASCO Post Staff
Rami Manochakian, MD, of Mayo Clinic Florida, offers his perspective on the new phase III findings on osimertinib, a third-generation, central nervous system EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor, which demonstrated an unprecedented overall survival benefit for patients with EGFR-mutated, stage IB–IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after complete tumor resection, with or without adjuvant chemotherapy (Abstract LBA3).
