Is inhibin B a potential marker of gonadotoxicity in prepubertal children treated for cancer?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Chemotherapy treatment of childhood cancer may impair gonadal function, which may be manifested only in adulthood as permanent sterility. Detection of gonadal dysfunction in prepubertal children has been hampered by the absence of a sensitive marker. Inhibin B is secreted by small antral follicles and Sertoli cells in females and males, respectively, and may be a marker of gonadal function in prepubertal children. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate inhibin B in relation to sensitive measurements of gonadotrophins as markers of the early gonadotoxic effects of chemotherapy in prepubertal children treated for cancer. STUDY DESIGN AND SUBJECTS: Twenty-five prepubertal children (9 females), median age 4.5 years (range 1.2-12.8 years) with cancer (16 solid tumours, nine acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, ALL) were studied longitudinally. Blood samples were collected before and during chemotherapy (solid tumours) or immediately following induction and first intensification (ALL). Post-treatment (1-6 months) samples were collected in 12 of the patients (5 females). MEASUREMENTS: Dimeric inhibin B was measured by double antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). FSH and LH were measured by sensitive time-resolved immunofluorescence. RESULTS: Girls: Pretreatment inhibin B was slightly high in one girl but normal for age and sex in all others: median 16.1 (range 9.4-186.2) ng/l, median SD score +0.2 (-1.3 to +2.6). Inhibin B decreased to undetectable levels (< 8 ng/l) in 8/9 girls during treatment (P = 0.03), with no accompanying rise in FSH or LH. Post-treatment recovery of inhibin B was variable: median 16.1 (range < 8.0-44.2) ng/l, median SD score +0.1 (range < -2.4 to +1.8). Sustained undetectable inhibin B levels were observed in 2/5 girls with correspondingly elevated FSH concentrations (11.8 and 10.9 U/l). Boys: Inhibin B was normal for age and sex in all boys before treatment with no significant change during or after treatment (medians 93 ng/l, 85 ng/l and 94 ng/l, SD scores -0.3, -0.6 and -0.2, respectively). Inhibin B decreased to undetectable levels in one boy post-treatment with no accompanying increase in FSH or LH. CONCLUSIONS: In prepubertal girls with cancer, chemotherapy is associated with suppression of inhibin B, usually transient, which may indicate arrest of follicle development. Sustained suppression of inhibin B following treatment may be indicative of permanent ovarian damage. In prepubertal boys, chemotherapy had little immediate effect on Sertoli cell production of inhibin B, although one boy showed a delayed effect. Inhibin B, together with sensitive measurements of FSH, may be a potential marker of the gonadotoxic effects of chemotherapy in prepubertal children with cancer.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".