The Pharmaceuticalized Prostate

• This chapter discusses the use of alpha-blockers to treat lower urinary tract symptoms secondary to benign prostate hyperplasia (LUTS/BPH) as an example of how pharmaceuticals are involved in producing anatomical objects that can be associated with symptoms and diseases. It uses clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of LUTS/BPH and an analytical framework taken from feminist science studies and science and technology studies, drawing on the tradition of thinking about how the gendered body is produced in and by medical technologies. With the concepts actant and intra-action, it articulates the material-discursive constellations that enact the prostate as a target for alpha-blocker therapies by thinking through the intra-actions of patients, bodies and pharmaceuticals. I will first give a brief history of prostate treatments and then read the use of alpha-blockers as described by the guidelines as an example of a pharmaceuticalized prostate.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Benign Prostate Hyperplasia; Lower Urinary Tract Symptom; Pharmaceutical Treatment; American Urologic Association; Actor Network Theory

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)