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
Lisa M. DeAngelis, MD, and Ingo K. Mellinghoff, MD, both of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discuss findings from the INDIGO trial showing that the IDH1/2 inhibitor vorasidenib improves progression-free survival for patients with residual or recurrent grade 2 glioma with an IDH1/2 mutation. These data demonstrate the clinical benefit of vorasidenib in this patient population for whom chemotherapy and radiotherapy are being delayed.
The ASCO Post Staff
Alberto Bossi, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy, discusses phase III findings showing that combining prostate radiotherapy with systemic treatment did not improve overall survival in men with de novo metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer and low metastatic burden. However, best outcomes (radiographic progression–free-survival and overall survival) were observed in men receiving the standard of care plus abiraterone acetate plus prednisone with radiotherapy (Abstract LBA5000).
The ASCO Post Staff
Rana R. McKay, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, and Toni K. Choueiri, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, discuss results from the phase III CONTACT-03 study, showing that, for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC), adding the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab to cabozantinib did not improve clinical outcomes compared with treatment with cabozantinib alone. In addition, higher toxicities were observed in the combination arm (Abstract LBA4500).
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
Christian Pfister, MD, PhD, of Rouen University Hospital, discusses phase III results from the VESPER trial, which showed that dose-dense methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin provided a better overall survival rate at 5 years and improved disease-specific survival compared with gemcitabine as perioperative chemotherapy in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (Abstract LBA4507).
