Reviewer's report
Title:hTERT, MYC and TP53 deregulation in gastric preneoplastic lesions
Version: 1Date:15 May 2012
Reviewer: Reginald V. Lord
Reviewer's report:
Review of “hTERT, MYC and TP53 deregulation in gastric preneoplastic lesions”
by Tanielly Cristina Raiol Silva et al. for BMC Gastroenterology
This manuscript reports on a straightforward study by a group who have
investigated these genes in detail in previous studies, including in non-human
primate gastric cancer models. The study is well conducted, the results and
analysis are very clear, and the paper is well written. The overall importance of
the findings is only moderately high but the difference in positive
immunoreactivity, in particular, in IM compared to gastritis, may be clinically
valuable.
My only major suggestion is that the importance of the findings has been
overstated. In the Discussion the authors claim that “Therefore, taking our results
together with those from the literature, we hypothesize that patients presenting
intestinal metaplasia with immunoreactivity of hTERT, MYC, and p53 –
alterations common described in gastric neoplasia – must be included in a risk
group for gastric cancer and should be monitored at regular intervals with
endoscopy and histopathology analysis.” This implies that these three markers
are valid biomarkers of progression to cancer in patients with IM. The data have
not shown this and references to others’ work to support this statement is also
lacking. I believe this statement should be modified to indicate that the proteins
should be investigated further for roles as markers of disease progression, for
which a much larger patient cohort(s) will be needed, ideally with sequential
biopsies from the same individuals.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Reviewer's report
Title:hTERT, MYC and TP53 deregulation in gastric preneoplastic lesions
Version: 1Date:15 May 2012
Reviewer: Reginald V. Lord
Reviewer's report:
Review of “hTERT, MYC and TP53 deregulation in gastric preneoplastic lesions”
by Tanielly Cristina Raiol Silva et al. for BMC Gastroenterology
This manuscript reports on a straightforward study by a group who have
investigated these genes in detail in previous studies, including in non-human
primate gastric cancer models. The study is well conducted, the results and
analysis are very clear, and the paper is well written. The overall importance of
the findings is only moderately high but the difference in positive
immunoreactivity, in particular, in IM compared to gastritis, may be clinically
valuable.
My only major suggestion is that the importance of the findings has been
overstated. In the Discussion the authors claim that “Therefore, taking our results
together with those from the literature, we hypothesize that patients presenting
intestinal metaplasia with immunoreactivity of hTERT, MYC, and p53 –
alterations common described in gastric neoplasia – must be included in a risk
group for gastric cancer and should be monitored at regular intervals with
endoscopy and histopathology analysis.” This implies that these three markers
are valid biomarkers of progression to cancer in patients with IM. The data have
not shown this and references to others’ work to support this statement is also
lacking. I believe this statement should be modified to indicate that the proteins
should be investigated further for roles as markers of disease progression, for
which a much larger patient cohort(s) will be needed, ideally with sequential
biopsies from the same individuals.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:hTERT, MYC and TP53 deregulation in gastric preneoplastic lesions
Version: 1Date:15 May 2012
Reviewer: Reginald V. Lord
Reviewer's report:
Review of “hTERT, MYC and TP53 deregulation in gastric preneoplastic lesions”
by Tanielly Cristina Raiol Silva et al. for BMC Gastroenterology
This manuscript reports on a straightforward study by a group who have
investigated these genes in detail in previous studies, including in non-human
primate gastric cancer models. The study is well conducted, the results and
analysis are very clear, and the paper is well written. The overall importance of
the findings is only moderately high but the difference in positive
immunoreactivity, in particular, in IM compared to gastritis, may be clinically
valuable.
My only major suggestion is that the importance of the findings has been
overstated. In the Discussion the authors claim that “Therefore, taking our results
together with those from the literature, we hypothesize that patients presenting
intestinal metaplasia with immunoreactivity of hTERT, MYC, and p53 –
alterations common described in gastric neoplasia – must be included in a risk
group for gastric cancer and should be monitored at regular intervals with
endoscopy and histopathology analysis.” This implies that these three markers
are valid biomarkers of progression to cancer in patients with IM. The data have
not shown this and references to others’ work to support this statement is also
lacking. I believe this statement should be modified to indicate that the proteins
should be investigated further for roles as markers of disease progression, for
which a much larger patient cohort(s) will be needed, ideally with sequential
biopsies from the same individuals.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
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