Reviewer's report
Title:Gastroesophageal reflux leads to esophageal cancer in a surgical model
with mice
Version: 1Date:6 November 2008
Reviewer: Glyn Jamieson
Reviewer's report:
The MS documents an interesting attempt to produce a mouse model of
adenocarcinoma of the esophagus via reflux.My major difficulty with reading the
paper was that the authors assume far too much knowledge on the part of the
reader. e.g.
1.What does the symbol -/- mean?
2.Is heterozygous knockout of INK4a/Arf the same thing as hypermethylation of
p14Arf and p16 INK4a? I think it needs to be at least stated otherwise the reader
is left wondering why this knockout was chosen.
3.Why was the mutant trasgene model chosen?
4.Why was this omeprazole dose chosen?And why was there no omeprazole
alone group?
5.Were the surgical procedures undertaken using magnification? How can you
be sure that the mucus glands wer e not just part of the duodenum which had
been hitched in during the anastomosis-particularly a problem using the Swiss
roll technique.
Other questions I have are;
1.There doesnt appear to be any pattern to the mice numbers chosen.The
numbers were 49, 52,36,42,24,5,36,30,26 and then 10 and10 for the
controls.Why were these numbers chosen?And there is no explanation given as
to why three of the groups had male and female mice and the other three had
only male mice.
2.Presumably there were good reasons for giving iron at the timings
chosen.These need to be explained.To see the effect of the iron each of the
groups needed a control group where iron wasnt given .
And a comment.I will never understand why authors seem to go out of their way
to make their paper hard to read by using unnecessary abbreviations.In this
paper I would accept only GERD .There is no more justification for contracting
esophageal adenocarcinoma to EAC than ,for instance contracting iron
supplementation to IS or poly clonal antibody to PCA.It is only in the
authors'interest that I make the comment since it will make the paper easier to
read.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare thay I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Gastroesophageal reflux leads to esophageal cancer in a surgical model
with mice
Version: 1Date:6 November 2008
Reviewer: Glyn Jamieson
Reviewer's report:
The MS documents an interesting attempt to produce a mouse model of
adenocarcinoma of the esophagus via reflux.My major difficulty with reading the
paper was that the authors assume far too much knowledge on the part of the
reader. e.g.
1.What does the symbol -/- mean?
2.Is heterozygous knockout of INK4a/Arf the same thing as hypermethylation of
p14Arf and p16 INK4a? I think it needs to be at least stated otherwise the reader
is left wondering why this knockout was chosen.
3.Why was the mutant trasgene model chosen?
4.Why was this omeprazole dose chosen?And why was there no omeprazole
alone group?
5.Were the surgical procedures undertaken using magnification? How can you
be sure that the mucus glands wer e not just part of the duodenum which had
been hitched in during the anastomosis-particularly a problem using the Swiss
roll technique.
Other questions I have are;
1.There doesnt appear to be any pattern to the mice numbers chosen.The
numbers were 49, 52,36,42,24,5,36,30,26 and then 10 and10 for the
controls.Why were these numbers chosen?And there is no explanation given as
to why three of the groups had male and female mice and the other three had
only male mice.
2.Presumably there were good reasons for giving iron at the timings
chosen.These need to be explained.To see the effect of the iron each of the
groups needed a control group where iron wasnt given .
And a comment.I will never understand why authors seem to go out of their way
to make their paper hard to read by using unnecessary abbreviations.In this
paper I would accept only GERD .There is no more justification for contracting
esophageal adenocarcinoma to EAC than ,for instance contracting iron
supplementation to IS or poly clonal antibody to PCA.It is only in the
authors'interest that I make the comment since it will make the paper easier to
read.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare thay I have no competing interests
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Gastroesophageal reflux leads to esophageal cancer in a surgical model
with mice
Version: 1Date:6 November 2008
Reviewer: Glyn Jamieson
Reviewer's report:
The MS documents an interesting attempt to produce a mouse model of
adenocarcinoma of the esophagus via reflux.My major difficulty with reading the
paper was that the authors assume far too much knowledge on the part of the
reader. e.g.
1.What does the symbol -/- mean?
2.Is heterozygous knockout of INK4a/Arf the same thing as hypermethylation of
p14Arf and p16 INK4a? I think it needs to be at least stated otherwise the reader
is left wondering why this knockout was chosen.
3.Why was the mutant trasgene model chosen?
4.Why was this omeprazole dose chosen?And why was there no omeprazole
alone group?
5.Were the surgical procedures undertaken using magnification? How can you
be sure that the mucus glands wer e not just part of the duodenum which had
been hitched in during the anastomosis-particularly a problem using the Swiss
roll technique.
Other questions I have are;
1.There doesnt appear to be any pattern to the mice numbers chosen.The
numbers were 49, 52,36,42,24,5,36,30,26 and then 10 and10 for the
controls.Why were these numbers chosen?And there is no explanation given as
to why three of the groups had male and female mice and the other three had
only male mice.
2.Presumably there were good reasons for giving iron at the timings
chosen.These need to be explained.To see the effect of the iron each of the
groups needed a control group where iron wasnt given .
And a comment.I will never understand why authors seem to go out of their way
to make their paper hard to read by using unnecessary abbreviations.In this
paper I would accept only GERD .There is no more justification for contracting
esophageal adenocarcinoma to EAC than ,for instance contracting iron
supplementation to IS or poly clonal antibody to PCA.It is only in the
authors'interest that I make the comment since it will make the paper easier to
read.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare thay I have no competing interests
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