Cancer on Trial
Oncology as a New Style of Practice
Until the early 1960s, cancer treatment consisted primarily of surgery and radiation therapy. Most practitioners then viewed the treatment of terminally ill cancer patients with heroic courses of chemotherapy as highly questionable. The randomized clinical trials that today sustain modern oncology were relatively rare and prompted stiff opposition from physicians loath to assign patients randomly to competing treatments. And yet today these trials form the basis of medical oncology. How did such a spectacular change occur? How did medical oncology pivot from a nonentity and, in some regards, a reviled practice to the central position it now occupies in modern medicine?
In "Cancer on Trial" Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio explore how practitioners established a new style of practice, at the center of which lies the cancer clinical trial. Far from mere testing devices, these trials have become full-fledged experiments that have redefined the practices of clinicians, statisticians, and biologists. Keating and Cambrosio investigate these trials and how they have changed since the 1960s, all the while demonstrating their significant impact on the progression of oncology. A novel look at the institution of clinical cancer research and therapy, this book will be warmly welcomed by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists of science and medicine, as well as clinicians and researchers in the cancer field.
Reviews
"This innovative book is more than a history of cancer research and clinical trials in the twentieth century, it's a history of contemporary biomedicine all together. Whereas most previous scholarly accounts have placed the laboratory at center stage, 'Cancer on Trial' finally gives the clinic the attention it deserves. Clinical trials might seem less glamorous than 'eureka moments' in the laboratory, but they are certainly more representative of the workings of today's biomedical research. By focusing on cancer clinical trials as a 'style of practice', rather than as the routine testing of new treatments, Keating and Cambrosio show compellingly how biomedicine has evolved into a specific kind of research enterprise redefining at the same time treatments, diseases, patients, and researchers. 'Cancer on Trial' offers to its readers powerful intellectual tools to understand current debates about the successes and failures of cancer therapies, the role of public and private research, and the promises and perils of personalized medicine. Anyone interested in current biomedical research will benefit immensely from reading this book" – Bruno J. Strasser, University of Geneva and Yale University
"This remarkable book charts the emergence of a clinical field – medical oncology – for which experimental protocols have become routinized as a form of normal practice. 'Cancer on Trial' will make a lasting contribution to the sociology of scientific knowledge, the history of clinical practice, and the understanding of the networked basis of biomedical research" – Jeremy A. Greene, Harvard University
"Today's cancer patient inhabits a bewildering chemo-world of trials and protocols, risks and probabilities, toxic chemicals and noxious side effects. What brought this new world into being? With a powerful grasp of historical and technical detail, Keating and Cambrosio tell the important story of the rise of the organizational forms of modern 'oncopolitics', and they deftly capture the unique character of a new style of scientific practice" – Steven Epstein, Northwestern University
"'Cancer on Trial' is a landmark study in historical and social studies of clinical research. Keating and Cambrosio brilliantly analyze the apparatus through which oncology trials are conducted. Through detailed examinations of specific trials in three periods, they show how tightly coupled epistemic, institutional, and technical changes constituted a new form of clinical research practice. This carefully argued and meticulously documented book will be immensely interesting not only to scholars in science and technology studies, but also to cancer researchers interested in the origins of their experimental practices" – Stephen Hilgartner, Cornell University
