By Jennifer C. King, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, GO2 for Lung Cancer

“Equity: Every Patient. Every Day. Everywhere.” That was the theme for this year’s American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. And, indeed, the theme of health equity ran through the meetings tracks and presentations right from the start.

In the opening session Rhea Boyd, MD, MPH, spoke about anti-racism in cancer care. She reminded participants of the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates who, in Between the World and Me, pointed out that racism lands “with great violence, upon the body.” Dr. Boyd discussed how racism kills people and pointed to the extreme differences in health outcomes by race during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the lung cancer space, several presentations focused on how Black patients have the same percentage of driver mutations in their lung cancers and yet often do not receive comprehensive biomarker testing by next-generation sequencing at the same rate.  The Food and Drug Administration presented data that showed that Black patients only made up 2% of participants in the lung cancer clinical trials leading to immunotherapy drug approvals. There were also presentations on the often overwhelming financial impact of cancer care. And we heard personal stories, such as that of lung cancer medical oncologist Narjust Duma, MD, who talked about how she felt uncomfortable and out of place as a Latina training in medicine.

On a positive note, there are studies aimed at addressing some of these issues. One study discussed at ASCO involved an antiracism intervention to address disparities in time to lung cancer surgery. It showed that the intervention improved care not just for Black patients but for patients of all races within the study’s catchment area.

As a community, we have a lot of work to do to address gender, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic inequities in care. We applaud ASCO and ASCO’s president, Lori J. Pierce, MD, for making this important theme the spotlight of this year’s meeting. We will collaborate with them and others to promote research and healthcare delivery that addresses inequities in care.