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Abstract Excessively restrictive inclusion and exclusion criteria in clinical trials are one of many barriers to clinical trial enrollment for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes/neoplasms (MDSs). Many organizations are developing efforts to increase clinical trial eligibility; yet, several recent publications focused on patients with MDS suggest that many patients with this disease may be excluded from clinical trials unnecessarily. Clinical trial eligibility should reflect the phase of the study and risks of the agent being studied. Phase 3 trials should be less restrictive than early-phase trials to represent the real-world population as closely as possible. We hypothesize that many clinical trials, particularly phase 3 trials, have unnecessarily restrictive eligibility criteria. This study aims to evaluate the most common eligibility criteria according to phase of trial and to determine whether criteria correspond with drug safety signals. We identified MDS clinical trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov from 1 January 2000 to 1 September 2023 and analyzed the eligibility criteria of 191 therapeutic MDS trials. We found that categorical inclusion and exclusion criteria are remarkably similar in representation across trial phases. Additionally, only 13% of trials are concordant with drug safety signals, suggesting that the eligibility criteria are often arbitrary. On behalf of the icMDS (International Consortium for Myelodysplastic Syndromes), an association of international MDS experts, we provide a position statement on restrictive eligibility criteria for MDS clinical trials that should be avoided with the aim of removing barriers to clinical trial enrollment.

Hypertension is the leading modifiable risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF) and is estimated to be present in >70% of AF patients. This Frontiers Review was prepared by 29 expert members of the AF-SCREEN International Collaboration to summarize existing evidence and knowledge gaps on links between hypertension, AF, and their cardiovascular sequelae; simultaneous screening for hypertension and AF; and the prevention of AF through antihypertensive therapy. Hypertension and AF are inextricably connected. Both are easily diagnosed, often silent, and frequently treated inadequately. Together, they additively increase the risk of ischemic stroke, heart failure, and many types of dementia, resulting in greater all-cause mortality, considerable disease burden, and increased health care expenditures. Automated upper arm cuff blood pressure devices with implemented technology can be used to simultaneously detect both hypertension and AF. However, positive screening for AF with an oscillometric blood pressure monitor still requires ECG confirmation. The current evidence suggests that high-risk individuals aged ≥65 years or with treatment-resistant hypertension could benefit from AF screening. Since antihypertensive therapy effectively lowers AF risk, particularly in individuals with left ventricular dysfunction, hypertension should be the key target for AF prediction and prevention rather than merely a comorbidity of AF. Nevertheless, several important gaps in knowledge need to be filled over the next years, including the ideal method and selection of patients for simultaneous screening of hypertension and AF and the optimal antihypertensive drug class and blood pressure targets for AF prevention.

Abstract Objective To estimate the real‐world risk of cardiovascular events among patients with migraine treated with erenumab and other migraine preventive medications. Background Migraine preventive treatment with calcitonin gene‐related peptide (CGRP) pathway inhibitors, such as erenumab and others, may theoretically result in cardiovascular effects due to a lack of compensatory vasodilation with CGRP pathway inhibition. Methods In this retrospective observational cohort study, we estimated the unadjusted cumulative risk (CR) of new‐onset hypertension, acute myocardial infarction (MI), or stroke among patients with migraine newly treated with erenumab, other anti‐CGRP pathway monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), standard oral preventive medications, and onabotulinumtoxinA using data from the MarketScan® Commercial and Medicare Supplemental medical claims database. Comparative analyses to assess the relative risk (RR) of vascular events were gated on the comparability of treatment groups with respect to baseline demographics and clinical characteristics. Potential bias due to unmeasured confounding was evaluated via negative control outcome (NCO) analyses. Confounding based on measured covariates and differential informative censoring were addressed with inverse probability weights. Results A total of 108,019 new users of migraine preventive medications were included. Unadjusted CR (95% confidence interval [CI]) of hypertension at 12 months of treatment was: erenumab, 9.34% (8.79–9.89%); other anti‐CGRP pathway mAbs, 9.42% (8.92–9.92%); standard oral preventive medications, 9.09% (8.77–9.41%); and onabotulinumtoxinA, 9.10% (8.39–9.81%). NCO analyses identified minimal concerns related to unmeasured confounding in erenumab versus other mAbs and erenumab versus onabotulinumtoxinA comparisons. Adjusted RRs (95% CIs) of acute MI and stroke, respectively, at 36 months of treatment were 1.02 (0.45–1.59) and 0.90 (0.56–1.25) for erenumab versus other mAbs and 0.87 (0.19–1.55) and 0.97 (0.42–1.52) for erenumab versus onabotulinumtoxinA. Conclusions In this analysis of the MarketScan medical claims database, we found no difference in the risk of vascular events in patients treated with erenumab versus other anti‐CGRP pathway mAbs or onabotulinumtoxinA.

Importance High-quality evidence regarding suppressive valacyclovir treatment in herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO) is necessary to guide care. Objective To determine whether suppressive valacyclovir compared with placebo delays the occurrence of new or worsening stromal keratitis (SK), endothelial keratitis (EK), iritis, or dendriform epithelial keratitis (DEK) during 12 months of treatment and if treatment benefit persisted at 18 months (secondary end point). Design, Setting, and Participants The Zoster Eye Disease Study (ZEDS) was a randomized clinical trial conducted in 95 sites from November 2017 to June 2024. Immunocompetent, nonpregnant adults with a history of an HZO rash, documented active keratitis or iritis within 1 year, and an estimated glomerular filtration rate of 45 mL/min/1.73 m 2 or greater were eligible. After determined to be eligible, participants were randomized in 4 strata: age at onset (<60 years vs ≥60 years) and disease duration (<6 months vs ≥6 months). Interventions A total of 12 months of double-masked daily valacyclovir, 1000 mg, or placebo. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was time to first occurrence within 12 months of new or worsening SK, EK, iritis, or DEK. Results A total of 527 participants (median [IQR] age, 60 [50-68] years; 266 female [50.5%]; 266 in the valacyclovir group; 261 in the placebo group) were randomized in 4 strata; 481 completed 12 months, and 460 completed 18 months. Data were analyzed by intention to treat. At 12 months, primary end points occurred in 86 participants (33%) assigned to placebo and 74 (28%) assigned to valacyclovir, and at 18 months in 104 participants (40%) assigned to placebo and 86 (32%) assigned to valacyclovir. The hazard ratio (HR) of the primary end point at 12 months was 0.77 for participants taking valacyclovir vs placebo (HR, 0.77; adjusted 95% CI, 0.56-1.05; P = .09) and 0.73 at the secondary end point at 18 months (HR, 0.73; adjusted 95% CI, 0.55-0.97; P = .03). There was a reduction of multiple other secondary end points at 12 months (HR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.52-0.95; P = .02) and 18 months (HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.55-0.95; P = .02). Conclusions and Relevance Although the primary outcome did not show a benefit of suppressive valacyclovir treatment, secondary study outcomes showed treatment superiority at the 18-month end point and reduced number of multiple episodes of keratitis or iritis at both 12 and 18 months. These results support consideration of 1 year of suppressive valacyclovir treatment for HZO. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03134196

Importance Evidence regarding suppressive valacyclovir treatment on postherpetic neuralgia is necessary to guide care. Objective To test the hypothesis that suppressive treatment with 1000 mg/d of oral valacyclovir for 12 months reduces the prevalence, severity, and duration of postherpetic neuralgia compared with placebo at 12 and 18 months in participants with herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO). Design, Setting, and Participants Multicenter, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial including 527 immunocompetent, nonpregnant adults with history of HZO rash, documented keratitis, or iritis within 1 year and an estimated glomerular filtration rate of 45 mL/min/1.73 m 2 or greater. The study was conducted at 95 participating sites (in Canada, New Zealand, and the US) from November 2017 to June 2024 and participant visits occurred every 3 months. Intervention Treatment with 1000 mg/d of valacyclovir or placebo for 12 months. Main Outcomes and Measures Prevalence of postherpetic neuralgia, severity as determined by pain score (a score of ≥3 on a scale of 1-10), pain duration (≥3 months after HZO onset), and total daily dose of pain medication. Results Of the 527 participants (490 completed 12 months of treatment and 460 completed 18 months), 73 (14%) had postherpetic neuralgia and were analyzed by age at HZO onset (<60 years or ≥60 years) and disease duration (recent [<6 months] or chronic [≥6 months]). Of the 73 participants with postherpetic neuralgia (34 in the valacyclovir group and 39 in the placebo group), the mean age was 62.4 years (SD, 13.6 years), 59% were female, 5% were Black or African American, and 10% were Hispanic. The prevalence of postherpetic neuralgia at 12 months was not reduced by valacyclovir (12/32 [38%]) compared with placebo (14/35 [40%]) (between-group difference, 2.5% [95% CI, −20.8% to 25.8%]; P >.99). The participants who were younger than 60 years at HZO onset and had a chronic disease duration had lower pain scores in the valacyclovir group (mean score, 0.3 [SD, 0.9]) vs the placebo group (mean score, 0.8 [SD, 1.9]) at 12 months ( P = .045) and at 18 months (mean score, 0.2 [SD, 0.9] vs 1.0 [SD, 2.3], respectively; P = .02). There was a decrease in pain duration in the valacyclovir group at 18 months (mean, 13.6 [SD, 11.4] months) vs the placebo group (mean, 18.7 [SD, 29.5] months) (linear mixed-effects model between-group difference, −3.39 months [95% CI, −6.73 to −0.04 months]; P = .046). The total daily dose of neuropathic pain medication was lower in the valacyclovir group (mean, 271.4 [SD, 593.8] mg/d) vs the placebo group (mean, 363.4 [SD, 592.2] mg/d) at 12 months (linear mixed-effects model P = .006) and at 18 months (mean, 209.0 [SD, 412.8] mg/d vs 286.2 [SD, 577.9] mg/d, respectively; linear mixed-effects model P = .01). Conclusions and Relevance One year of suppressive treatment with valacyclovir was associated with a lower dosage of neuropathic pain medication. Participants in the valacyclovir group, who were younger at HZO onset and had a chronic disease duration, had lower pain scores. These secondary outcomes support consideration of 1 year of suppressive treatment with valacyclovir to reduce dosage of pain medications and pain due to HZO. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03134196

Abstract Purpose: Monitoring disease progression in patients with high-grade gliomas (HGG) is challenging due to treatment-related changes in imaging and the requirement for neurosurgical intervention to obtain diagnostic tissue. DNA junctions in HGG often amplify oncogenes, making these DNA fragments potentially more abundant in blood than monoallelic mutations. In this study, we piloted a cell-free DNA approach for disease detection in the plasma of patients with HGG by leveraging patient-specific DNA junctions associated with oncogene amplifications. Experimental Design: Whole-genome sequencing of grade 3 or 4 isocitrate dehydrogenase–mutant or wild-type astrocytomas was utilized to identify amplified junctions. Individualized qPCR assays were developed using patient-specific primers designed for the amplified junction. ctDNA levels containing these junctions were measured in patient plasma samples. Results: Unique amplified junctions were evaluated by individualized semi-qPCR assays in presurgical plasma of 18 patients, 15 with tumor-associated focal amplifications and three without tumor-associated focal amplifications. high copy-number junctions were robustly detected in the plasma of 14 of 15 (93.3%) patients with amplified junctions and none of the controls. Changes in junction abundance correlated with disease trajectory in serial plasma samples from five patients, including increased abundance of amplified junctions preceding radiographic disease progression. Conclusions: In patients with grade 3 or 4 astrocytomas who had tumor-associated amplifications, patient-specific amplified junctions were successfully detected in assayed plasma from most patients. Longitudinal analysis of plasma samples correlated with disease trajectory, including cytoreduction and progression.

261 Background: Clinicians use next-generation sequencing (NGS) to tailor targeted treatments for PCa patients. However, the results are often available in unstructured formats and are saturated with technical jargon, making them inaccessible for patients. Therefore, we aimed to assess the efficacy of LLMs to accurately extract genomic characteristics from unstructured reports and generate patient-friendly summaries for ease of variant interpretation in PCa patients. Methods: This retrospective study included patients with PCa who underwent NGS from 2023-2024. The GPT4 model was utilized using structured zero-shot prompts to extract genomic characteristics from unstructured reports in a non-decomposed manner. Prompt development was conducted iteratively using a 2% random sample of the dataset. Genomic characteristics ascertained by LLM were assessed against held out vendor-curated test dataset for evaluation. Performance was assessed using weighted evaluation metrics (precision, recall, and F1-score). Additionally, the extracted variables were organized using rule-based criterion and presented as a separate prompt to GPT4 to generate summaries for interpretation at the level of each biologically relevant variant. Mean Flesch-Kincaid scores and Vocd-D statistic with standard deviations were computed to assess readability and lexical diversity of LLM-generated variant interpretation summaries. Results: A total of 331 patients (370 NGS reports) were included in the study. Evaluation on the held-out test dataset (Table) showed that the weighted average precision ranged from 80% for extracting tumor mutational burden to 100% for extracting the CtDNA fraction from unstructured reports. The weighted average recall ranged from 85% for extracting CtDNA tumor fraction to 99% for ascertaining variant/alteration. The weighted average F1-scores varied from 0.83 for extracting tumor mutational burden to 1.0 for extracting specimen site from NGS reports. The mean Flesch-Kincaid score was 8.29 ± 1 indicating average/standard readability ease. The mean Vocd-D statistic was 7.55 ± 1 indicating focused summaries, however, with limited lexical diversity. Conclusions: This study suggests that large language models can effectively extract genomic characteristics from unstructured reports and can potentially improve genomic literacy among prostate cancer patients by providing easy-to-interpret variant summaries. However, targeted prompting may be required to increase lexical diversity for improved engagement. Performance across different genomic characteristics. Category Precision Recall F1-Score Altered gene 0.86 0.97 0.89 Variant/alteration type 0.98 0.99 0.98 Variant allele fraction 0.96 0.96 0.96 Test name/type 1 0.99 1 Specimen site 1 0.99 1 Tumor mutational burden 0.8 0.93 0.83 CtDNA tumor fraction 1 0.85 0.92 MSI status 0.99 0.97 0.98

270 Background: Inconsistent reporting of subgroup data across clinical trials makes interpretation and application of the evidence from trials challenging. We conducted a living systematic review to summarize evidence for American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guidelines for management of metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Here, we provide an overview of reporting patterns of subgroup data across mCRPC trials. Methods: MEDLINE and EMBASE were systematically searched from each database's inception through September 20 th , 2024, to identify phase II/III/IV randomized clinical trials assessing the efficacy and safety of treatment options in mCRPC. For outcomes of overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS), data from the subgroup analyses was collected and compared across trials to assess heterogeneity in the reporting of subgroups. Results: This analysis included 141 trials (phase II: 83; phase III: 56; phase IV: 2). OS was reported by 113 (80%) trials; 32 (28%) reported OS by any subgroups with 95 unique subgroup categories. PFS was reported by 110 (78%) trials; 23 (21%) reported PFS by any subgroups with 63 unique subgroup categories. Even among consistently reported subgroups, such as age, ECOG performance status, race, geographical area, and Gleason score, considerable heterogeneity in different subgroup levels/thresholds was observed across trials. Top ten most commonly reported subgroups are summarized (Table). Conclusions: Lack of consistent reporting for subgroup analysis in mCRPC trials preclude meaningful conclusions about clinically relevant subgroup and synthesizing evidence for clinical guidelines. A standardized framework for consistent reporting of subgroup data across trials can help inform clinical practice and clinical practice guidelines. OS PFS Number of trials 113 110 Reporting subgroup analysis – N (%) 32 (28) 23 (21) Commonly reported subgroups – (N) Age (26)ECOG-PS (26)LDH (21)PSA (18)Geographic area (15)Alkaline phosphatase (14)Visceral disease (14)Gleason score (9)Race (9)Brief pain inventory level (8) Age (21) ECOG-PS (19)PSA (18)LDH (14)Geographic area (13)Visceral disease (11)Gleason score (10)Alkaline phosphatase (9)Bone metastasis (9)Disease location (9) Age – (N) <65 (14); ≥65 (9); ≤68 (1); ≥69 (1); <70 (5); ≥70 (5); ≤74 (4); 65-75 (5); ≤ 71 (1); >71 (1); ≥75 (11); >Median (1); <Median (1) <65 (12); 65-74 (6); ≥65 (6); <70 (5); ≥70 (5); <75 (4); ≥75 (10); 76-80 (1); >80 (1) ECOG-PS – (N) 0 (15); 0-1 (11), 1 (11); 1-2 (5); 2 (12) 0 (15); 0-1 (5), 1 (12); 1-2 (2); 2 (6) Race – (N) White (9)Non-white (6)African American/black (2)Asian (2) White (8)Non-white (5)African American/black (2)Asian (4) Geographic Area – (N) Europe (8)North America (14)United States (1)Australia (1)Asia (2) Europe (11)North America (13)United States (1)Australia (1)Asia (2)North and South America (2) Gleason Score – (N) 2-6 (1); 7 (1); 8 (1); <8 (8); ≥ 8 (8); 9-10 (1) <8 (10); ≥ 8 (10)

134 Background: Prostate cancer patients with visceral metastases at diagnosis are often treated using one-size-fits-all approach. For example, CHAARTED criteria treats any visceral metastasis as high volume. Therefore, we aimed to assess overall survival (OS) by site of visceral involvement in patients with metastatic PCa. Methods: Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database (2010-2021) was queried to obtain case listing data on metastatic PCa patients from 17 registries. The patients were categorized into three groups based on visceral metastasis at diagnosis: lung metastasis, liver metastasis, and others. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed to estimate median OS with 95% confidence interval (CI). Log-rank test was conducted to assess if survival was significantly different among the groups. Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was performed to assess the magnitude of difference among the groups. P-value <0.05 established statistical significance. Results: This analysis included 21,007 metastatic PCa patients (lung: n=319; liver: n=123; brain: 107; bone: 20538). Metastatic PCa population with lung metastasis exhibited a median OS of 60 months (95% CI: 48-72) compared to 24 months (95% CI: 12-36) in population with liver metastases and to 36 months (95% CI: 36-36) in population with other metastases. The difference in OS among the groups was statistically significant (p < 0.001). Compared to population with lung metastasis, those with liver (HR: 1.91; 95% CI: 1.41-2.57) but not those with other metastases (1.16; 0.97-1.39) had significantly worse OS adjusting for Gleason score, PSA and race (Table). Conclusions: In metastatic PCa, patients with lung-only metastasis have significantly better overall survival and should be considered differently in prognostication to liver metastases. Consideration of site of visceral metastasis is critical for treatment intensification decisions. Limitations of this analysis include lack of accounting for confounding relationships at individual patient level. Variable Hazard Ratio (95% CI) Metastases (Lung) REFERENCE Metastases (Liver) 1.91 (1.41-2.57) Metastases (Other) 1.16 (0.97-1.39) Gleason score≥8 REFERENCE Gleason score <8 0.68 (0.64 -0.72) PSA - ng/dL 1.01 (1.00 – 1.01) Race (White) REFERENCE Race (Black) 0.99 (0.94 – 1.05) Race (Asian or Pacific Islander) 0.70 (0.64 – 0.76)