Dialogues

Aug 8, 2024, 04:34

ASCO24 Updates: Is Gender Inequality Still Prevalent in Oncology?

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting is one of the largest and most prestigious conferences in the field of oncology. This year, the meeting took place from May 31 to June 4 in Chicago, Illinois. The event gathers oncologists, researchers, and healthcare professionals from around the world to discuss the latest advancements in cancer research, treatment, and patient care. Keynote sessions, research presentations, and panel discussions are typically part of the agenda, providing attendees with valuable insights into emerging trends and innovations in oncology.

This year, OncoDaily was at ASCO 2024 for the first time covering the meeting on-site. We had the pleasure of interviewing researchers who summarized the highlights of their work.

In this video, Rachna Shroff, MD, MS, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, shares insights from their oral presentation on “Evaluating speaker gender in scientific sessions at ASCO and ASCO GI (2019-2023)”.

My name is Dr. Rachna Shroff. I am the Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. On behalf of my colleagues, I am so excited to be presenting a rapid oral abstract on Monday, June 3rd that really looks at the importance and known gender disparities in scientific programming at ASCO and ASCO-GI.

There’s a lot of data that suggests that there are disparities in terms of opportunities for clinical trial leadership and clinical research publications between males and females. And so we noticed just anecdotally when we were sitting at GI-ASCO one year, myself and my colleague, Dr. Koons, that there was perhaps a predominance of men at the podium when looking at scientific presentations. So we decided to look at this retrospectively, and we looked from 2019 to 2023 at the GI scientific programming for both ASCO’s annual meeting as well as ASCO-GI.

And what we found was is 77% of the speakers at the podium for both ASCO and ASCO-GI over those five years were men versus 23% for females. We also noticed that there was really no difference, that that sort of disparity held itself when we looked at both ASCO and ASCO-GI, and it did not differ by region. We looked at Asia, Europe, and America, as well as by topic, meaning colorectal versus non-colorectal topics in the ASCO programming.

Importantly, when we looked at the educational programming for both ASCO and ASCO-GI, which is under the purview of the ASCO Education Committee and ASCO staff, there was a nice gender balance between men and women in the sessions for both ASCO and ASCO-GI across the five years. So things that were within ASCO’s control, it was really wonderful to see that there was a nice balance, but clearly there are notable disparities in terms of opportunities that are provided for podium presentations in the scientific programming.

We recognize some of the limitations of this study include that gender is actually not reported in the ASCO database, and so there is no self-reporting opportunities, and thus we made determinations on gender identity based on name and or the presentation and the look of the individual, and we recognize that as a limitation and an opportunity for us to think about how ASCO can improve identity or demographics in their database.

But regardless, we really think that this is the first step towards recognizing the disparities so that we can move the needle forward and really push for more equity at the podium, which will of course lead to improved equity across clinical trial leadership, clinical trial development, and in general cancer care. Don’t forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe to Onca Daily on YouTube. Hit the bell icon to stay updated.

More videos and content from ASCO 2024 on OncoDaily.