From Screening to Clinical Research: The Cure of Leukemia and the Early Development of the Cooperative Oncology Groups, 1955-1966

Abstract

Recent work in the history and sociology of biomedicine has emphasized the novelty of the biomedical enterprise as a distinctive institutional, material, and epistemological configuration. Since World War II, biology and medicine have become such tightly intertwined research enterprises that those working in biomedicine cannot predict whether a particular research project, clinical investigation, or even clinical intervention will result in biological or medical facts. In this paper, we examine part of the process of the emergence of biomedicine by focusing on the development of clinical cancer trials in the United States in the years 1955-66, a period during which the clinical trials program run by the National Cancer Institute became autonomous from the Institute's screening program for anticancer compounds. We examine in particular the work carried out by the cooperative groups and the Acute Leukemia Task Force to which they belonged, analyzing the evolution of the relations between screening, chemotherapy, clinical trials, and clinical research.

Relocation, realignment and standardisation: Circuits of translation in Huntington’s disease

“…We suggest that there are complex processes of migration and circulation that extend the notion of translation. We maintain that translation is not simply the uni-directional movement from bench to bedside (Bush, 1945), nor the bi-directional movement of bench to bedside and bedside to bench (Keating, 2002;Löwy, 1996;Sartor, 2003). Equally, it is not solely a rhetorical device used to promote enthusiasm for the research (Wainwright et al, 2006); although precisely because it is rhetorically powerful in justifying research, it is important to take a broader perspective.…”

Managing the future: The Special Virus Leukemia Program and the acceleration of biomedical research

“…The director of the CCNSC, Kenneth Endicott, explained that the "spectacular temporary remissions in acute leukemia" made chemotherapy work a promising area for the NCI to coordinate cooperative work: "with the impetus given this field by Congress, it has been possible to bring together the pharmaceutical industry, research organizations, private investigators, and the United States Government, each contributing their varied skills and resources to implement an effective cooperative national program" (Endicott, 1957, p. 275 & 293). Its efforts soon constituted the single largest budgetary item at the NCI, expanding to include extensive cooperative clinical trials spanning dozens of institutions under the supervision of NCI officers based in Bethesda (Gaudillière, 1994;Keating & Cambrosio, 2002Krueger, 2008, pp. 95e99;Löwy, 1996, pp.…”

Converging histories, reconsidered potentialities: The stem cell and cancer

“…5 Following trials with the nitrogen mustards and the introduction of other anti-leukaemic drugs, chemotherapy was by the 1950s in the ascendancy, especially in the United States where writing in 1954 Joseph Burchenal could assert that 'we are living now in an age of chemotherapy' (Burchenal, 1954). Here vast screening programmes to identify anti-leukaemic compounds were launched and large-scale clinical trials of various new agents commenced (Keating and Cambrosio, 2002). There were some early successes in bringing about short-lived remission in acute forms of the disease using a growing range of anti-leukaemic drugs, including Myleran and various anti-metabolites, notably Aminopterin (Zubrod, 1979).…”