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
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
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
Aaron T. Gerds, MD, of Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, talks about treating the anemia many patients with myelofibrosis experience because of JAK inhibitor therapy. The ACE-536-MF-001 study showed that luspatercept improved anemia and transfusion burden in this population, with a safety profile consistent with that in previous studies (Abstract 7016).
The ASCO Post Staff
Arlene O. Siefker-Radtke, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase III findings showing that for patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma and FGFR alteration who already had been treated with a PD-(L)1 inhibitor, erdafitinib significantly improved overall and progression-free survival, as well as overall response rate, compared with investigator’s choice of chemotherapy (LBA4619).
The ASCO Post Staff
Nirav N. Shah, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, discusses the efficacy and safety of pirtobrutinib, a highly selective, noncovalent BTK inhibitor, studied for more than 3 years in the BRUIN trial. The results showed that the use of pirtobrutinib continues to have durable efficacy and a favorable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma and prior BTK inhibitor therapy. Responses were observed in patients with high-risk disease features, including blastoid/pleomorphic variants, elevated Ki67 index, and TP53 mutations (Abstract 7514).
