To assess long-term health effects of ovarian-stimulation drugs we followed-up for over 20 years a British cohort of 7355 women with ovulatory disorders, 43% of whom were prescribed ovarian-stimulation drugs, and identified a total of 274 deaths and 367 incident cancers. Relative to the general population, the cohort experienced lower mortality from most causes, including from all neoplasms combined, and lower incidence of cervical cancer, but higher incidence of cancers of the breast (relative risk: 1.13; 95% CI 0.97, 1.30) and corpus uteri (2.02; 1.37, 2.87). There were, however, no significant differences in the risk of cancers of the breast, corpus uteri, ovary, or of any other site, between women who had been prescribed ovarian-stimulation drugs and those who had not. Further analyses by type of drug and dose revealed a dose -response gradient in the risk of cancer of the corpus uteri (P for linear trend ¼ 0.03), with women given X2250 mg of clomiphene having a 2.6-fold (2.62; 0.94, 6.82) increase in risk relative to those who were not treated. These findings do not support strong associations between ovulation-stimulation drugs and cancer risks, but they indicate the need for continued monitoring to establish whether risks are elevated in certain subgroups of users. British Journal of Cancer (2009) Several case reports in the 1980s, linking assisted conception and ovarian cancer, raised concerns about the long-term health effects of infertility treatment (Fishel and Jackson, 1989). These reports prompted many investigations into potential associations between exposure to fertility treatments used to stimulate ovulation and cancer risks. Some earlier studies (Whittemore et al, 1992;Rossing et al, 1994;Shushan et al, 1996) A cause -effect relationship between infertility treatment and cancer risks would have important implications for assisted conception programmes, which have been expanding considerably in recent years. A total of 34 855 women had in vitro fertilisation treatment in the United Kingdom in 2006 corresponding to 44 275 cycles of treatment, a 6.8% increase in the number of patients relative to the previous year (HFEA, 2008). We investigated the long-term health effects of the use of ovarian-stimulation treatments, with particular attention to potential cancer risks, in a large British cohort of women investigated for ovulatory disorders who have been followed-up for over 20 years. MATERIALS AND METHODSStudy subjects were identified through two case series of women who attended reproductive endocrinology practices in London.

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It is postulated that in a saturable dye absorber used for giant pulse laser switching a phase grating is formed. To prove this experimentally a frequency doubled part of the laser beam was reflected from this ``Lippman plate'' at the Bragg angle.