Reviewer's report
Title:CD44/CD24 Expression in Recurrent Gastric Cancer: A Retrospective
Analysis
Version: 1Date:23 April 2012
Reviewer: Andrew Ruszkiewicz
Reviewer's report:
The main limitations of this work are the small size of study group and insufficient
pathological classification of the investigated cases. The authors have been able
to identify 95 patients with recurrent gastric cancer but only 20 (plus additional 20
from control group) were “randomly” selected for further investigation with
inexpensive immunohistochemical technique using two antibodies. It would be
desirable to include all 95 patients and matched control cases.
The studied cancers lack detailed pathological evaluation. While grading and
stage of the disease are provided, histological types are not. Some histological
types of gastric cancer are more often encountered in Asian population (such as
lymphoepithelial carcinomas). However, there is no even subdivision into
intestinal or diffuse cancer types. Other issue is with the samples from patients
with recurrent disease. Presumably, the originally resected primary tumours were
examined by immunohistochemistry for the purpose of the study. As patients with
recurrent disease had most likely histological confirmation of the cancer it would
be interesting to know the results of CD44/CD24 staining on these biopsies in
order to exclude the intratumour heterogeneity.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests' below.
Reviewer's report
Title:CD44/CD24 Expression in Recurrent Gastric Cancer: A Retrospective
Analysis
Version: 1Date:23 April 2012
Reviewer: Andrew Ruszkiewicz
Reviewer's report:
The main limitations of this work are the small size of study group and insufficient
pathological classification of the investigated cases. The authors have been able
to identify 95 patients with recurrent gastric cancer but only 20 (plus additional 20
from control group) were “randomly” selected for further investigation with
inexpensive immunohistochemical technique using two antibodies. It would be
desirable to include all 95 patients and matched control cases.
The studied cancers lack detailed pathological evaluation. While grading and
stage of the disease are provided, histological types are not. Some histological
types of gastric cancer are more often encountered in Asian population (such as
lymphoepithelial carcinomas). However, there is no even subdivision into
intestinal or diffuse cancer types. Other issue is with the samples from patients
with recurrent disease. Presumably, the originally resected primary tumours were
examined by immunohistochemistry for the purpose of the study. As patients with
recurrent disease had most likely histological confirmation of the cancer it would
be interesting to know the results of CD44/CD24 staining on these biopsies in
order to exclude the intratumour heterogeneity.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests' below.
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:CD44/CD24 Expression in Recurrent Gastric Cancer: A Retrospective
Analysis
Version: 1Date:23 April 2012
Reviewer: Andrew Ruszkiewicz
Reviewer's report:
The main limitations of this work are the small size of study group and insufficient
pathological classification of the investigated cases. The authors have been able
to identify 95 patients with recurrent gastric cancer but only 20 (plus additional 20
from control group) were “randomly” selected for further investigation with
inexpensive immunohistochemical technique using two antibodies. It would be
desirable to include all 95 patients and matched control cases.
The studied cancers lack detailed pathological evaluation. While grading and
stage of the disease are provided, histological types are not. Some histological
types of gastric cancer are more often encountered in Asian population (such as
lymphoepithelial carcinomas). However, there is no even subdivision into
intestinal or diffuse cancer types. Other issue is with the samples from patients
with recurrent disease. Presumably, the originally resected primary tumours were
examined by immunohistochemistry for the purpose of the study. As patients with
recurrent disease had most likely histological confirmation of the cancer it would
be interesting to know the results of CD44/CD24 staining on these biopsies in
order to exclude the intratumour heterogeneity.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests' below.
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