Dr Arteaga analyzes 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, she teases 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, Arteaga illuminates some of the gaps made visible when personalization happens from below.

 

Image credits: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Social Science Research for the 21st Century - Progress through Partnership

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