Aliya Rashid, DO, MPH, on The Significant Minority of Female Authorship in Pivotal CAR T-Cell Trials

“We noticed that those large clinical trials mostly had males as the primary authors. Within our group, we were thinking about how a lot of women seem to be underrepresented in hematology and then in the research field altogether. So, we were interested in quantifying the disparity between males and females in research publications, especially in the area of CAR-T trials.”

Researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center surveyed authorship of the 13 pivotal trials that led to the approval of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), lymphoma, and myeloma that were published between 2017-2022 and found that over 70% of authors were male and less than 30% were female. The findings may reflect lower female representation in transplant and cellular therapy fields, although in the last couple of years there has been a trend of improved gender equality in authorship.

Findings from the review were presented in a poster at the 2023 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, held December 9-12, in San Diego, California. CGTLive spoke with study coauthor Aliya Rashid, DO, MPH, internal medicine resident physician, University of Kansas Medical Center, to learn more about the rationale behind the research, the study’s findings, and how they correlate to wider gender disparities in the field. She shared that the group is continuing their research and trying to include more clinical trials in their data. Rashid stressed that although progress has been made in recent years, there is still a lot of room for improvement and the issue still needs to be kept in attention.

Click here to read more coverage of ASH 2023.

REFERENCE
Khaliq A, Wesson W, Logan E, et al. The glass wall: Gendered authorship disparities in in CD 19 and BCMA CAR-T clinical trials for lymphoma and myeloma. Presented at: ASH 2023 Annual Meeting & Exposition. December 9-12; San Diego, CA. Abstract #2344