Measured Responses: British Clinical Researchers and Therapies for Advanced Breast Cancer in the 1960s and 1970s

  • Elizabeth Toon
Chapter
Part of the Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History book series (STMMH)

Abstract

After the Second World War, newly developed systemic treatments for advanced breast cancer — endocrine therapy and cytotoxic chemotherapy — promised to improve and extend the lives of women with metastatic disease, while providing new insights about the nature of the disease itself. But clinician-researchers in Britain, North America and Europe quickly found that the benefits of these new interventions were unevenly distributed, and that the risks associated with them were substantial, sometimes even deadly. Given this unpredictable calculus of benefit and risk, these experts wondered how they could assess the utility of these therapeutic tools. Did endocrine therapy and cytotoxic chemotherapy work, they asked, for women with advanced breast cancer?

Keywords

Breast Cancer Palliative Care Advanced Breast Advanced Breast Cancer Subjective Response 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Elizabeth Toon 2012

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  • Elizabeth Toon

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