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In axillary node-negative primary breast cancer, 70% of the patients will be cured by locoregional treatment alone. Therefore, adjuvant systemic therapy is only needed for those 30% of node-negative patients who will relapse after primary therapy and eventually die of metastases. Traditional histomorphological and clinical factors do not provide sufficient information to allow accurate risk group assessment in order to identify node-negative patients who might benefit from adjuvant systemic therapy. In the last decade various groups have reported a strong and statistically independent prognostic impact of the serine protease uPA (urokinase-type plasminogen activator) and its inhibitor PAI-1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1) in node-negative breast cancer patients. Based on these data, a prospective multicenter therapy trial in node-negative breast cancer patients was started in Germany in June 1993, supported by the German Research Association (DFG). Axillary node-negative breast cancer patients with high levels of either or both proteolytic factors in the tumor tissue were randomized to adjuvant CMF chemotherapy versus observation only. Recruitment was continued until the end of 1998, by which time 684 patients had been enrolled. Since then, patients have been followed up in order to assess the value of uPA and PAI-1 determination as an adequate selection criterion for adjuvant chemotherapy in node-negative breast cancer patients. This paper reports on the rationale and design of this prospective multicenter clinical trial, which may have an impact on future policies in prognosis-oriented treatment strategies.

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In the automotive industry hot stamping of boron manganese steels represents one of the major technologies to manufacture crash relevant structures within body in white considering aspects of light weight construction. Hot stamping can be described as a non-isothermal hot sheet metal forming process. Temperature control in the forming process plays an important role. The process is quite complex as temperature dependent material and process properties such as flow curves, heat transfer and friction coefficients have to be considered. To improve the knowledge about the process the influence of different process parameters and tool coatings on the heat transfer between tool and specimen is investigated. Additionally, the impact of monolayer, multilayer and superlattice coatings on the wear behavior and on friction is characterized. Furthermore, the effect of different austenitization parameter settings is analyzed with regard to the tribological conditions and resulting adhesive wear.