Carmen E. Guerra, MD, MSCE, on Strategies for Equitable Access to Cancer Clinical Trials
AACR Annual Meeting 2023
Carmen E. Guerra, MD, MSCE, of the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center, discusses the ways in which community outreach, programs to help patients access cancer clinical trials, and institutional policies such as ASCO’s Just Ask program can help increase equity, diversity, and inclusion in cancer clinical trials and reduce unconscious bias.
The ASCO Post Staff
Marcus O. Butler, MD, of Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, discusses evidence of tumor response in orbital lesions treated with tebentafusp in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma. Tebentafusp is a first-in-class novel bispecific protein, the first therapy to show superior overall survival compared with standard therapy for metastatic uveal melanoma. Based on these study findings, a role for this agent as a neoadjuvant treatment warrants further investigation. (Abstract LB 118/1)
The ASCO Post Staff
Timothy A. Yap, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses safety and efficacy data on three different PARP inhibitors combined with the ATR inhibitor camonsertib in patients with solid tumors harboring DNA damage response alterations. The findings showed that low-dose intermittent regimens of camonsertib and different PARP inhibitor combinations were safe. In addition, anticancer activity was observed in patients with platinum- and PARP inhibitor–resistant tumors. Patients with late-line ovarian cancer derived the most benefit from therapy. (Abstract CT018)
The ASCO Post Staff
Harry Klein, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses MatchMiner, a software platform launched in 2017, that matches patients with appropriate clinical trials of targeted therapies. The platform uses data on the genetic features of a patient’s cancer, as well as clinical data, to identify trials at Dana-Farber for which the patient might be eligible. MatchMiner can also help recruit patients who meet the trial’s eligibility requirements. (Abstract 1067)
The ASCO Post Staff
Pierce K.H. Chow, PhD, MBBS, of the National Cancer Centre, Singapore and Duke-NUS Medical School, discusses phase III findings showing that, for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma at high risk of disease recurrence, adjuvant therapy with atezolizumab plus bevacizumab after resection or thermal ablation was more effective than active surveillance. According to Dr. Chow, these results could lead to reassessment of surgical resection in this disease. (Abstract CT003)
The ASCO Post Staff
Diana Azzam, PhD, of Florida International University, Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, discusses her study results, which showed that treatment protocols guided by functional precision medicine yielded significantly longer progression-free survival and improved overall response in pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory cancer, compared with their previous treatment and standard of care. (Abstract LB358)
