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Cyanobacteria can reach high densities in eutrophic lakes, which may cause problems due to their potential toxin production. Several methods are in use to prevent, control or mitigate harmful cyanobacterial blooms. Treatment of blooms with low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) is a promising emergency method. However, effects of H 2 O 2 on cyanobacteria, eukaryotic phytoplankton and zooplankton have mainly been studied in controlled cultures and mesocosm experiments, while much less is known about the effectiveness and potential side effects of H 2 O 2 treatments on entire lake ecosystems. In this study, we report on three different lakes in the Netherlands that were treated with average H 2 O 2 concentrations ranging from 2 to 5 mg L -1 to suppress cyanobacterial blooms. Effects on phytoplankton and zooplankton communities, on cyanotoxin concentrations, and on nutrient availability in the lakes were assessed. After every H 2 O 2 treatment, cyanobacteria drastically declined, sometimes by more than 99%, although blooms of Dolichospermum sp., Aphanizomenon sp., and Planktothrix rubescens were more strongly suppressed than a Planktothrix agardhii bloom. Eukaryotic phytoplankton were not significantly affected by the H 2 O 2 additions and had an initial advantage over cyanobacteria after the treatment, when ample nutrients and light were available. In all three lakes, a new cyanobacterial bloom developed within several weeks after the first H 2 O 2 treatment, and in two lakes a second H 2 O 2 treatment was therefore applied to again suppress the cyanobacterial population. Rotifers strongly declined after most H 2 O 2 treatments except when the H 2 O 2 concentration was ≤ 2 mg L -1 , whereas cladocerans were only mildly affected and copepods were least impacted by the added H 2 O 2 . In response to the treatments, the cyanotoxins microcystins and anabaenopeptins were released from the cells into the water column, but disappeared after a few days. We conclude that lake treatments with low concentrations of H 2 O 2 can be a successful tool to suppress harmful cyanobacterial blooms, but may negatively affect some of the zooplankton taxa in lakes. We advise pre-tests prior to the treatment of lakes to define optimal treatment concentrations that kill the majority of the cyanobacteria and to minimize potential side effects on non-target organisms. In some cases, the pre-tests may discourage treatment of the lake., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: MammaPrint is a prognostic assay based on gene expression in tumors from patients with early breast cancer. MammaPrint has been extensively validated and Food and Drug Administration cleared in fresh and formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue. We aimed to assess its prognostic performance in the biomarker cohort of the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group 8 (ABCSG-8) patient population, and to obtain a higher level of evidence with regard to its clinical validity after RNA extraction from FFPE biobank tissue., Patients and Methods: A prespecified retrospective analysis to test the prognostic performance of the MammaPrint test to predict distant recurrence-free survival at 5 and 10 years as primary end point was carried out. MammaPrint risk, clinicopathological factors (after central pathological review), and clinical risk (using a modified version of Adjuvant! Online) were evaluated by Cox regression analyses., Results: From 1347 available samples, 607 (45%) failed quality control after RNA extraction. In total, 658 (49%) patients were included in survival analyses: MammaPrint low risk versus high risk is a significant prognostic factor for distant recurrence-free survival at 5 years (94.0% versus 91.6%) with a significant risk reduction of 6.5% at 10 years (log-rank P value = 0.017, low risk 91.3% versus high risk 84.8%). The multivariable models suggest that hazard ratio (HR) is primarily driven by tumor stage (5-year HR 3.89; confidence interval 1.97-7.71) and nodal status (5-year HR 1.73; confidence interval 0.91-3.21). After adjustment for clinical risk groups, MammaPrint HRs remain stable with values just below 2.0 after the first 3 years., Conclusions: The MammaPrint test showed significant prognostic performance at 5 and 10 years of follow-up. In the particular cohort of ABCSG-8, the statistical independence from clinically assessed covariates remains unclear, and no conclusions concerning the clinical validity of the test can be drawn., Competing Interests: Disclosure PD reports that funding for this project was provided by Agendia to ABCSG.research in the framework of ‘Gene Expression Analysis to investigate survival outcomes in ER+ breast cancers: GiAntEss’, grants from Cepheid/Danaher and Myriad during the conduct of the study. LVV reports personal fees, a part-time employment, and is stakeholder at Agendia NV during the conduct of the study. MG reports personal fees/travel support from Amgen, Daiichi Sankyo, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Lifebrain, NanoString, Novartis, TLC Biopharmaceuticals; an immediate family member is employed by Sandoz. ZB-H reports personal fees and other from Roche, and personal fees from Novartis, Biomedica outside the submitted work. RG reports personal fees from Celgene, Roche, Merck, Takeda, Astra Zeneca, Novartis, Amgen, BMS, MSD, Sandoz, AbbVie, Gilead, Daiichi Sankyo, and Janssen C outside the submitted work. EL reports his employment in Medical Affairs by Agendia. GR reports personal fees from Pierre Fabre, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, personal fees and nonfinancial support from Roche, Novartis, Pfizer, Amgen, and nonfinancial support from Bristol-Myers Squibb outside the submitted work. WH reports personal fees from Roche Austria GmbH, MSD, Bioproducts GmbH, Boehringer Ingelheim and Biomedica Medizinprodukte GmbH outside the submitted work. DE reports personal fees from AstraZeneca, Novartis, Myriad, MSD, Roche, Pfizer outside the submitted work. CD reports to work as a consultant for Agendia. MF reports personal fees from AstraZeneca, Bayer, Biomedica, Bio-Rad, Boehringer Ingelheim, Myriad Genetics Inc., Pfizer and Roche outside the submitted work. The remaining authors have declared no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Next-generation DNA sequencing is rapidly becoming an indispensable tool for genome-directed cancer diagnostics, but next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) is currently not standardly used in clinical diagnostics for expression assessment. However, multigene RNA diagnostic assays are used increasingly in the routine diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer. Two of the most widely used tests are currently available only as a central laboratory service, which limits their clinical use. We evaluated the use of RNA-seq as a decentralized method to perform such tests. The MammaPrint and BluePrint RNA-seq tests were found to be equivalent to the clinically validated microarray tests. The RNA-seq tests were highly reproducible when performed in different locations and were stable over time. The MammaPrint RNA-seq test was clinically validated. Our data demonstrate that RNA-seq can be used as a decentralized platform, yielding results substantially equivalent to results derived from the predicate diagnostic device., (Copyright © 2019 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Aim: To measure the impact of MammaPrint on adjuvant treatment decisions and to analyze the agreement in treatment decisions between hospitals from 4 European countries for the same patient cohort., Methods: Breast cancer patients were prospectively enrolled and MammaPrint was assessed. Patients' clinical data without and then with MammaPrint results were sent to the different multidisciplinary teams and treatment advice was provided for each patient., Results: Using MammaPrint, chemotherapy treatment advice for ER+/HER2- breast cancer patients was changed in 37% of patients by the Dutch, 24% by the Belgian, 28% by the Italian and 35% by the Spanish teams. MammaPrint increased the inter-institutional agreement in treatment advice (chemotherapy or no chemotherapy) from 51% to 75%., Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that MammaPrint impacts adjuvant chemotherapy recommendation. MammaPrint can decrease inter-institutional and inter-country variability in adjuvant treatment advice for breast cancer patients., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)