Changes in intimate friendship with same-sex and opposite-sex friends in preadolescence and adolescence were investigated using Sharabany's Intimacy Scale. The sample consisted of 480 Israeli children from the 5th, 7th, 9th, and llth grades who rated their friendship with a same-sex or opposite-sex best friend. There was a significant age difference in overall intimacy with same-sex friends. Frankness and spontaneity, knowing and sensitivity, attachment, exclusiveness, and giving and sharing were dimensions that exhibited change with age. Trust and loyalty, and taking and imposing did not. Opposite-sex friendship revealed a significant increase in intimacy with age. Boys and girls did not differ in reported opposite-sex friendship in the 5th and 7th grades, whereas girls in the 9th and llth grades reported higher intimacy than did boys. This sex-by-age pattern of interaction was particularly evident for attachment and for trust and loyalty. Girls were higher in knowing and sensitivity, giving and sharing, and taking and imposing. The implications for further differentiation among types of peer relations and interrelation of dyadic friendship and cognitive growth are discussed.The importance of peer relations for the normal social development of the individual has been documented. Studies relate to experiments with animals (e.g., Harlow, 1971;Suomi, 1978), schizophrenic adults (e.g., Pitt, Kornfeld, &Kolb, 1963), and young children (e.g., Freud & Dann, 1951). Most studies, however, including those that used the term friendship, focused mainly on acceptability and isolation among peers (see reviews in Hartup 1970Hartup , 1978Hartup , 1979. Few studies examined the nature of enduring meaningful relations proper, such as children's expectations of their friends (

Women with a mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 face a lifetime risk of breast cancer of 80%, and following the first diagnosis the 10-year risk of contralateral breast cancer is 30%. It has been shown that both tamoxifen and oophorectomy prevent contralateral breast cancer, but it is not clear whether there is a benefit in giving tamoxifen to women who have previously undergone an oophorectomy. Furthermore, the relative degree of protection in BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers has not been well evaluated. We studied 285 women with bilateral breast cancer and a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, and 751 control women with unilateral breast cancer and a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation in a matched case-control study. Control women were of similar age and had a similar age of diagnosis of breast cancer and had been followed for as long as the case for a second primary breast cancer. The history of tamoxifen use for treating the first breast cancer was compared between bilateral and unilateral cases. The multivariate odds ratio for contralateral breast cancer associated with tamoxifen use was 0.50 for carriers of BRCA1 mutations (95% CI, 0.30-0.85) and was 0.42 for carriers of BRCA2 mutations (95% CI, 0.17-1.02). The protective effect of tamoxifen was not seen among women who had undergone an oophorectomy (OR 5 0.83; 95%CI, 0.24-2.89) but this subgroup was small. In contrast, a strong protective effect of tamoxifen was apparent among women who were premenopausal or who had undergone natural menopause (OR 5 0.44; 95% CI, 0.27-0.65). ' 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Key words: breast cancer; tamoxifen; oophorectomy; BRCA1; BRCA2The lifetime risk of breast cancer in women who carry a deleterious BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation is 80%, 1 and following an initial diagnosis of breast cancer the annual risk of contralateral breast cancer is 3%. 2 Both tamoxifen and oophorectomy have been shown to reduce the risk of contralateral breast cancer in carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. 2,3 In our previous case-control study of 209 bilateral cases and 384 unilateral controls we reported a reduction in contralateral breast cancer risk of 51% associated with tamoxifen use, but the observed protective effect was significant only in BRCA1 carriers. Since this report was published in 2000, we have continued to accrue study subjects to our BRCA carrier registry and we are able to readdress the question of tamoxifen protection with a greater degree of precision and are able to evaluate the magnitude of the protective effect separately for carriers of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. It is also of interest to establish whether or not there is a protective effect of tamoxifen in women who have previously undergone an oophorectomy and to evaluate the protective effect separately for pre and postmenopausal women. Material and methods Study subjectsInformation on patients with hereditary breast cancer was submitted to the study center by investigators at each of 49 contributing centers in 10 countries. These centers were requested to complete data forms for all known cases of female breast cance...

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Second trimester maternal serum biochemical markers, introduced between 1990 and 1995, were supplemented with new ultrasound methods at 14-16 weeks and first trimester biochemical markers between 1995 and 2000. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a Down syndrome (DS) prevention program among the Israeli Jewish population between 1990 and 2000. We collected data on the total number of prenatal tests performed on Israeli Jewish women, DS cases detected prenatally and DS livebirths in Israel during these years. We also studied the use of the newer screening tests in 1990, 1992, and 2000. Between 1990 and 1995, use of chromosomal studies for DS in this population increased from 11.3% to 21.6% and the percentage of cases detected prenatally from 53% to 70%. However, between 1996 and 2000, even with the new screening methods, the utilization rate remained similar (20.7% and 19.8%, respectively) and the percentage detected prenatally decreased to 61% in 2000. The total cost per case detected increased from $47,971 US dollars in 1990 to $75,229 US dollars in 1992, and to $190,171 US dollars in 2000. Between 1990 and 1995, improvement in the percentage of cases detected prenatally was associated with a significant increase in the amniocentesis rate-both are attributed to the introduction of second trimester maternal serum biochemical marker tests. Unexpectedly, the introduction between 1995 and 2000 of new genetic methods to assess the DS risk did not improve the percentage detected or reduce the amniocentesis rate, and was accompanied by an increased cost per case detected.