Health outcomes in offspring born to survivors of childhood cancers following assisted reproductive technologies

Purpose: An increasing number of childhood cancer survivors are using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) to overcome treatment-related fertility impairment. We report perinatal and health outcomes of offspring born to survivors following ART. Methods: The FeCt Multicenter Offspring Study surveyed the health of offspring of childhood cancer survivors. Health outcomes in offspring born to survivors following ART (n = 57, 4.6%) or after spontaneous conception (n = 1182) were assessed in the German cohort (n = 1239) using bivariate analysis. Findings were put into the context of the general German population by health outcome assessment in 1:1 matched-pair analysis (n = 2478). Results: Nearly twice the survivors used ART compared with numbers reported for the German general population (4.6% vs. 2.6%). Successful pregnancies were achieved after a median of two cycles, mainly using non-cryopreserved oocytes/sperm. Multiple sibling births (p < 0.001, 28.1% vs. 3.0%) and low birth weight (p = 0.008; OR = 2.659, 95% CI = 1.258-5.621) occurred significantly more often in offspring born to survivors who utilized ART than spontaneously conceived children, whereas similar percentages were born preterm or too small for their gestational age. ART did not increase the prevalence of childhood cancer or congenital malformations in offspring born to survivors. Conclusion: ART use by childhood cancer survivors was successful with both fresh and cryopreserved oocytes/sperm, and did not influence perinatal health or health outcomes when known confounders were taken into account. Implications for cancer survivors: Oncofertility is an important component of patient care. Our study implicates that the utilization of ART by adult survivors of childhood cancer does not put offspring at additional risk for adverse perinatal or health outcomes

Study protocol of the FIRE-8 (AIO-KRK/YMO-0519) trial: a prospective, randomized, open-label, multicenter phase II trial investigating the efficacy of trifluridine/tipiracil plus panitumumab versus trifluridine/tipiracil plus bevacizumab as first-line treatment in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

Background: Initial systemic therapy for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) is usually based on two- or three-drug chemotherapy regimens with fluoropyrimidine (5-fluorouracil (5-FU) or capecitabine), oxaliplatin and/or irinotecan, combined with either anti-VEGF (bevacizumab) or, for RAS wild-type (WT) tumors, anti-EGFR antibodies (panitumumab or cetuximab). Recommendations for patients who are not eligible for intensive combination therapies are limited and include fluoropyrimidine plus bevacizumab or single agent anti-EGFR antibody treatment. The use of a monochemotherapy concept of trifluridine/ tipiracil in combination with monoclonal antibodies is not approved for first-line therapy, yet. Results from the phase II TASCO trial evaluating trifluridine/tipiracil plus bevacicumab in first-line treatment of mCRC patients and from the phase I/II APOLLON trial investigating trifluridine/tipiracil plus panitumumab in pre-treated mCRC patients suggest favourable activity and tolerability of these new therapeutic approaches. Methods: FIRE-8 (NCT05007132) is a prospective, randomized, open-label, multicenter phase II study which aims to evaluate the efficacy of first-line treatment with trifluridine/tipiracil (35 mg/m(2) body surface area (BSA), orally twice daily on days 1-5 and 8-12, q28 days) plus either the anti-EGFR antibody panitumumab (6 mg/kg body weight, intravenously on day 1 and 15, q28 days) [arm A] or (as control arm) the anti-VEGF antibody bevacizumab (5 mg/kg body weight, intravenously on day 1 and 15, q28 days) [arm B] in RAS WT mCRC patients. The primary objective is to demonstrate an improved objective response rate (ORR) according to RECIST 1.1 from 30% (control arm) to 55% with panitumumab. With a power of 80% and a two-sided significance level of 0.05, 138 evaluable patients are needed. Given an estimated drop-out rate of 10%, 153 patients will be enrolled. Discussion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first phase II trial to evaluate the efficacy of trifluridine/tipiracil plus panitumumab in first-line treatment of RAS WT mCRC patients. The administration of anti-EGFR antibodies rather than anti-VEGF antibodies in combination with trifluridine/tipiracil may result in an increased initial efficacy

Braided enveloping algebras associated to quantum parabolic subalgebras

Associated to each subset $J$ of the nodes $I$ of a Dynkin diagram is a triangular decomposition of the corresponding Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ into three subalgebras $\widetilde{\mathfrak{g}_{J}}$ (generated by $e_{j}$, $f_{j}$ for $j\in J$ and $h_{i}$ for $i\in I$), $\mathfrak{n}^{-}_{D}$ (generated by $f_{d}$, $d\in D=I\setminus J$) and its dual $\mathfrak{n}_{D}^{+}$. We demonstrate a quantum counterpart, generalising work of Majid and Rosso, by exhibiting analogous triangular decompositions of $U_{q}(\mathfrak{g})$ and identifying a graded braided Hopf algebra that quantizes $\mathfrak{n}_{D}^{-}$. This algebra has many similar properties to $U_{q}^{-}(\mathfrak{g})$, in many cases being a Nichols algebra and therefore completely determined by its associated braiding

Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojektes zur Sozialkompetenz von Trainerinnen und Trainern im Spitzensport.Sport ist Spitze (21. Internationaler Workshop Reader zum Sportgespräch 12. und 13. Juni 2006, Köln)

Cachay K, Borggrefe C, Thiel A. Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojektes zur Sozialkompetenz von Trainerinnen und Trainern im Spitzensport.Sport ist Spitze (21. Internationaler Workshop Reader zum Sportgespräch 12. und 13. Juni 2006, Köln). Presented at the Sportgespräch, Köln

The relative monoidal center and tensor products of monoidal categories

This paper develops a theory of monoidal categories relative to a braided monoidal category, called augmented monoidal categories. For such categories, balanced bimodules are defined using the formalism of balanced functors. It is shown that there exists a monoidal structure on the relative tensor product of two augmented monoidal categories which is Morita dual to a relative version of the monoidal center. In examples, a category of locally finite weight modules over a quantized enveloping algebra is equivalent to the relative monoidal center of modules over its Borel part. A similar result holds for small quantum groups, without restricting to locally finite weight modules. More generally, for modules over bialgebras inside a braided monoidal category, the relative center is shown to be equivalent to the category of Yetter-Drinfeld modules inside the braided category. If the braided category is given by modules over a quasitriangular Hopf algebra, then the relative center corresponds to modules over a braided version of the Drinfeld double (i.e. the double bosonization in the sense of Majid) which are locally finite for the action of the dual