Cancer on trial : oncology as a new style of practice / Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio.

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2012], ©2012.

xviii, 456 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

From "nonentity" to global network: the rise of a new style of biomedical practice -- An early career in clinical oncology -- About this book -- A capsule history of cancer clinical trials -- Cancer clinical trials as a new style of practice -- The protocol -- Before there were trials -- Cancer hospitals and cancer institutes -- Diagnosing cancer -- Treating cancer -- Prognosticating cancer -- Testing therapies -- The emergence of clinical cancer research (1955-66) -- A landmark clinical trial -- Curing leukemia: the vamp trial -- A collective undertaking -- The elements of innovation -- What about the patients? -- The collective turn: cooperative groups as epistemic organizations -- Assembling the US cooperative system -- Screening for drugs: from mice to humans -- Tinkering with the cooperative group structure -- Meanwhile in Europe -- Clinical trial statistics -- What is a random sample? -- What is statistical significance? -- Statisticians, statistics, and early cooperative clinical trials -- Statisticians at the NIH -- Statisticians in Paris -- Fabricating the tools of the trade -- Controversial methods -- The emergence of the phase system -- Criticism and the redefinition of clinical cancer trials as an autonomous form of research -- Clinical cancer research under fire -- The reorganization of screening and clinical trials in the United States -- Surgery and radiotherapy in the cooperative groups -- An avalanche of numbers from the new style of practice (1965-89) -- A web of trials -- Breast cancer and its trials -- The lessons of the breast cancer trials -- The emergence of combination chemotherapy -- The multiple meanings of breast cancer trials -- Statisticians, data centers, and the organization of large-scale clinical trials -- Centers of calculation: us statisticians and the data center -- The mechanics of data production -- Meanwhile in Europe, take two -- Back in the USA: group statisticians and NCI statisticians -- Insiders' dissent: the randomization debate -- A relational space of substances and regimens -- The clinical evaluation of substances -- Screening substances: the animal screen -- Procuring compounds -- Oncopolitics? reshaping collaborative research -- Centralization or coordination? the European debate -- Clinical trials as clinical research: the US debate -- Oncology in the community -- Targeted therapy, targeted trials (1990-2006) -- Second interlude: molecular biology and oncogenes -- The rise of molecular biology -- Cancer and molecular biology: 1960-80 -- The clinical isolation of human oncogenes -- Oncogenes and oncoproteins since 1982 -- Magic bullets? the Gleevec trials -- Molecular biology and targeted substances -- The trials of a targeted therapy -- Where did Gleevec come from? -- Monitoring data, managing risks -- A medical oncologist and his patients -- Patients and activists -- Targeted therapy and clinical cancer research -- Introduction: molecular biology and translational research -- Molecular biology and the US cooperative groups -- The reorganization of the drug discovery process and the transformation of the NCI screen -- Clinical trials in a targeted age -- More oncopolitics -- Looking back and looking forward -- The observational alternative to clinical cancer trials -- Comparative effectiveness and clinical trials.

Includes bibliographical references and index.