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
Thierry Conroy, MD, of the Institut de Cancérologie de Lorraine, discusses phase III findings from the PRODIGE 23 trial, showing that neoadjuvant chemotherapy with mFOLFIRINOX followed by chemoradiotherapy, surgery, and adjuvant chemotherapy improved all outcomes, including overall survival, in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer compared with standard chemoradiotherapy, surgery, and adjuvant chemotherapy (Abstract LBA3504).
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
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
Narjust Florez, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Heather A. Wakelee, MD, of Stanford University, Stanford Cancer Institute, discuss new data supporting neoadjuvant pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy followed by surgery and adjuvant pembrolizumab as a promising new treatment option for patients with resectable stage II, IIIA, or IIIB (N2) non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (Abstract LBA100).
The ASCO Post Staff
Amer Methqal Zeidan, MBBS, MHS, of Yale University and Yale Cancer Center, discusses phase III findings on the first-in-class telomerase inhibitor imetelstat, which was given to patients with heavily transfusion-dependent non-del(5q) lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes that are resistant to erythropoiesis-stimulating agents. Imetelstat resulted in a significant and sustained red blood cell (RBC) transfusion independence in 40% of these heavily transfused patients. The response was also durable and accompanied by an impressive median hemoglobin rise of 3.6 g/dL, and seen in patients with and without ring sideroblasts. Importantly, reduced variant allele frequency was observed in the most commonly mutated myeloid genes which correlated with duration of transfusion independence and hemoglobin rise, therefore suggesting a disease-modifying potential of this agent (Abstract 7004).
