Game-changing? When Biomarker Discovery and Novel Forms of Patient Work Meet.
Accepted version
Peer-reviewed
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Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Arteaga Pérez, Ignacia 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
1545-5882
Volume Title
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
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All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Corporacion Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologya, CONICYT, Chile.
Philomathia Foundation