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Game-changing? When Biomarker Discovery and Novel Forms of Patient Work Meet.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Arteaga Pérez, Ignacia  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5610-6419

Abstract

I analyze the promised efficacy of Pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy regime under clinical trial for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork with patients and health professionals in a gastrointestinal cancer clinic in London, UK, I tease out the dynamics through which scientists and clinicians assemble personalized technologies to halt cancer growth in patients' bodies; what patients undergo in order to participate in these innovations; and the constraints that restrict the efficacy of these treatments. Beyond examining the treatment possibilities that clinical trials offer, I illuminate some of the gaps made visible when personalization happens from below.

Description

Keywords

United Kingdom, biomarker, bowel cancer, efficacy, immunotherapy, personalization, Anthropology, Medical, Biomarkers, Humans, Immunotherapy, London, Neoplasms

Journal Title

Med Anthropol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0145-9740
1545-5882

Volume Title

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Corporacion Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologya, CONICYT, Chile. Philomathia Foundation