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 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
Nagla Abdel Karim, MD, of the Inova Schar Cancer Institute, University of Virginia, discusses phase II data showing that maintenance atezolizumab plus talazoparib improved progression-free survival in Schlafen-11–selected patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer. This study demonstrated the feasibility of conducting biomarker-selected trials in this disease, paving the way for future evaluation of novel therapies in selected populations (Abstract 8504).
The ASCO Post Staff
Tycel J. Phillips, MD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, and Emanuele Zucca, MD, of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland and the International Extranodal Lymphoma Study Group, discuss findings from the largest prospective study of patients with primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma. The trial data support omitting radiotherapy in patients who achieve complete metabolic response after immunochemotherapy (Abstract LBA7505).
The ASCO Post Staff
Narjust Florez, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Ferdinandos Skoulidis, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discuss results of a biomarker subgroup analysis, showing that sotorasib demonstrated consistent clinical benefit vs docetaxel in all molecularly defined subgroups of patients with pretreated KRAS G12C–mutated advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Although no predictive biomarkers were confirmed, novel hypothesis-generating signals were observed (Abstract 9008).
The ASCO Post Staff
Nirav N. Shah, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, discusses phase II results showing that split-dose R-CHOP offers older patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) an equivalent dose intensity as R-CHOP-21 through a fractionated dosing schedule, improving tolerability. At the end of treatment for these older patients, a complete response rate of 71% was comparable to outcomes with R-CHOP in younger patients with the disease (Abstract 7554).
