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
Narjust Florez, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Ticiana Leal, MD, of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, discuss the use of tumor treating fields therapy, in which electric fields disrupt processes critical for cancer cell viability. Already approved by the FDA to treat glioblastoma and mesothelioma, the treatment has extended overall survival in this phase III study of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy, without exacerbating systemic toxicities (Abstract LBA9005).
The ASCO Post Staff
Narjust Florez, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of Yale Cancer Center, discuss new phase III findings on osimertinib, a third-generation, central nervous system EGFR-TKI, which demonstrated an unprecedented overall survival benefit for patients with EGFR-mutated, stage IB–IIIA non–small cell lung cancer after complete tumor resection, with or without adjuvant chemotherapy (Abstract LBA3).
The ASCO Post Staff
Jason J. Luke, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center, discusses adjuvant pembrolizumab, which, in previous results, improved distant metastasis– and recurrence-free survival in patients with resected stage IIB or IIC melanoma vs placebo. After a median follow-up of 39.4 months, adjuvant pembrolizumab continued to show a benefit over placebo, with no new safety signals (Abstract LBA9505).
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).
The ASCO Post Staff
Bobbie J. Rimel, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and Mansoor R. Mirza, MD, of Denmark’s Rigshospitalet and Copenhagen University Hospital, discuss new findings on dostarlimab-gxly plus carboplatin/paclitaxel, which improved progression-free survival while maintaining health-related quality of life, further supporting its use as a standard of care in primary advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer (Abstract 5504).
