Long abstract:

Metastatic melanoma is considered hard to treat and worrisome skin cancer. A limited efficacy of existing therapies for its treatment has motivated researchers in the MELOMANES project to develop an “innovative immunotherapy treatment enhanced by nanoparticles”. Beyond the molecular complexity that needs to be addressed, skin cancers as complex societal problems warrant additional perspectives from health systems, public and environmental health domains as well as lived experiences of patients. Furthermore, the development and purchase of treatments for skin cancers is becoming increasingly expensive, and access to such treatments is far from universally guaranteed. Such aspects of treating skin cancer are often ignored in the biomedical literature alone, despite the usefulness of biomedical interventions being dependent on their distribution, development, pricing, and prevention efforts. In short, the biomedical problematization of and solutions to skin cancers are stealthily intertwined with multiple disciplines and with multiple public health and political economy aspects of treating skin cancers. Using metastatic melanoma as a case study, we investigate a range of problem frames used in the literature (e.g. biomedicine, public health, political economy) and by the experts to describe the problems and the challenges of treating metastatic melanoma. Building upon our engagement as integrated STS researchers in the EC funded project MELOMANES, we explore how these frames can be aligned into a transdisciplinary problem framing of skin cancer treatment that can serve as a framework for reflexive evaluation of innovative treatments aimed at addressing a complex, interrelated societal problem.