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
Funda Meric-Bernstam, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses interim results from the DESTINY-PanTumor02 trial, the first tumor-agnostic global study of fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) in a broad range of HER2-expressing solid tumors. This agent showed an encouraging overall response rate, particularly in patients with IHC 3+ expression; durable clinical benefit; and a manageable safety profile in these heavily pretreated patients. T-DXd may be a potential new treatment option for this population (Abstract LBA3000).
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
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).
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
Marie Plante, MD, of Canada’s Université Laval and the CHUQ Hotel Dieu de Québec, discusses phase III results from a study that compared radical hysterectomy and pelvic node dissection vs simple hysterectomy and pelvic node dissection in patients with low-risk early-stage cervical cancer. The pelvic recurrence rate at 3 years in the women who underwent simple hysterectomy is not inferior to those who had radical hysterectomy. In addition, fewer surgical complications and better quality of life were observed with simple hysterectomy (LBA5511).
