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Improvements in early detection, screening and treatment of cancer have resulted in a significant improvement in cancer mortality and an increase in the number of cancer survivors globally. Accordingly, a significant rise in the number of cancer survivors in Ireland has been observed. The surveillance of survivors of gastrointestinal malignancies in Ireland is heterogeneous and represents an unmet need for standardisation.There are currently no national guidelines in Ireland to guide follow-up practices for these patients. The aim of this study was to establish homogeneity nationally with respect to follow-up of these patients by medical oncologists.A consensus group consisting of Irish oncologists with an interest in gastrointestinal malignancies was created to address this issue, and determined that it would be reasonable to adopt the NCCN guidelines for this purpose, but that this recommendation would not be prescriptive, and should be individualised to each patient.We hope that this initiative may help to homogenise survivorship practices in this cohort of Irish patients, and may support the implementation of survivorship initiatives by the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP).

Purpose: Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) analysis in plasma is an emerging technique with numerous applications in oncology. We employed cfDNA to determine chromosomal instability (CIN), nucleosome footprints (NF) and methylation profiles in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients and to predict outcome to bevacizumab (BVZ) combination therapy. Experimental Design: Low coverage whole-genome sequencing (LC-WGS) was performed on matched tumor and plasma samples from 74 mCRC patients participating in the CTRIAL-IE 12-16 AC-ANGIOPREDICT Phase II clinical trial (NCT01822444), prior to receiving BVZ, and analyzed for CIN (3 subclusters with low, intermediate and high CIN, respectively) and nucleosomes. For 61/74 mCRC patients, plasma samples before and after BVZ treatment were available and used for targeted methylation sequencing. A validation cohort of mCRC plasma samples (n= 24) from the University Medical Center Mannheim (UMM) was similarly profiled. Results: Based on cfDNA CIN profiles, we subtyped mCRC patients with 92.3% accuracy of sample distinction into low and high CIN clusters (cluster 1 against cluster 2 and 3), demonstrating concordance between matched plasma and tumor samples. Improved survival outcome was observed in CIN high patients. Plasma-based CIN clustering and improved survival for CIN high patients was also confirmed in the UMM cohort. NF and methylation profiles differed between CIN clusters and healthy individuals, and could reliably separate cluster 1 from cluster 2 and 3 samples (AUC=0.72 and 0.85 respectively). A large methylation score decrease after BVZ treatment was associated with improved overall survival (p = 0.013). Conclusions: cfDNA can be analyzed to predict outcome to BVZ in mCRC patients. Detection of CNAs, NFs and methylation profiles facilitated stratification of samples into CIN clusters and informed patient response to treatment. Citation Format: Ian S. Miller, Valentina Thomas, Tom Venken, Ingrid Arijs, Ana Barat, Johannes Betge, Tianzuo Zhan, Timo Gaiser, Matthias P. Ebert, Jochen Prehn, Rut Klinger, Darran P. O’Connor, Brian Brian Moulton, Verena Murphy, Ray McDermott, Brian Bird, Gregory Leonard, Liam Grogan, Anne Horgan, Nadine Schulte, Markus Moehler, Nicole Prannikar, Judith Franz-Werner, Hans-Peter Feustel, Diether Lambrechts, Annette T. Byrne. Analysis of cell free DNA to predict outcome to Bevacizumab combination therapy in metastatic colorectal cancer patients. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 5584.

We find that equity loan fees are the best predictor of cross-sectional returns. When compared to 102 other anomalies, the loan fee anomaly has the highest monthly long-short return (1.17%), has the highest monthly Sharpe Ratio (0.40), and unlike other anomalies, exhibits strong persistence throughout the sample. We show that 28% of the loan fee anomaly can be explained by its selective exposure to the best performing anomalies, while 72% is due to unique information possessed by short sellers. Our results show that short sellers' willingness to pay prices the cross-section of stocks and these "best ideas'' outperform other anomalies.

Bazaarvoice illustrates the problems with making market definition a requirement. Gregory K. Leonard & Parker Normann (Edgeworth Economics)

Rectal squamous cell carcinomas represent an extremely rare malignancy which carries a significant morbidity and mortality. Diagnosis requires distinction from squamous cell carcinoma of the anus and colonic adenocarcinoma by endoscopy and histopathological examination of a biopsy. Due to the rarity of the pathology, available evidence is limited and optimum management has yet to be elucidated. Older reports favored radical surgical management, but recent reports in the literature recommend judicious use of primary chemoradiotherapy. We herein report the diagnosis and management of a male patient with an aggressive, locally advanced rectal squamous cell carcinoma treated with good results with primary chemoradiotherapy. Six months after completion of therapy, however, extensive recurrence and metastases were diagnosed. This case highlights the need for stringent clinical and radiological follow-up.

Antitrust analysis based on natural experiments should pay heed to the warnings that have come out of this re-evaluation. Gregory K. Leonard (Edgeworth Economics LLC)

Differentiated products are the central economic focus of competition in consumer goods products such as cereal, soda, and beer. We first estimate demand models which do not restrict unduly the pattern of consumer preferences as does much previous research in the area of differenciated products. Using recently available transactions data we estimate own and cross price elasticities in a relatively unrestricted manner. We next turn to competitive analysis using our estimated demand system. We consider two applications in this paper. The main economic factor that we consider is that the firms which produce the differentiated products almost always tend to be multi-product firms in the given industry. Our first application is competitive analysis when two firms are allowed to merge. The other application that we consider is inference on the competitive structure in an industry. In both applications we consider the effect of a multi-product firm where its competitive decisions for one brand affects it sales and prices for other brands that it produces.

We will examine several interesting aspects of MOFCOM’s decision o block the proposed takeover by The Coca-Cola Company (“Coca-Cola†) of China Huiyuan Juice Group Limited (“Huiyuan†).

If the 2010 Merger Guidelines do not appear to offer much that is new, it is reasonable to ask what purpose they serve. Do we need Merger Guidelines any more? Gregory Leonard (NERA)

The nature of the revisions that we are proposing derives from our view that the Merger Guidelines would be more informative and useful if they reflected the actual practices of the Agencies.

This raises the question: When it comes to predatory pricing, is the EU from Venus, and the United States from Mars? The answer is not as simple as it may seem.

Hindsight is often invoked in order to point out where an original idea or exposition has really missed the mark. On re-reading the Grubel and Lloyd (1975) volume after twenty-five years we are, by contrast, struck by the extent to which they were prescient about developments in international trade theory that would follow their original work. Not only has their empirical measure of the extent of intra-industry trade been adopted by many researchers, but also their prose captures a number of ideas which, in subsequent hands, have provided the focal points of more detailed theoretical structures.

A correlation of .36 was found between participation in aesthetic activities and imagery arousal, as measured by self-rating scales. In addition, imagery scores differentiated aesthetic participation scores; and there was little evidence for a sex difference. These findings were discussed in terms of their relevance to creativity and to imagery and aesthetics in general.