Reviewer's report
Title:Occurrence of Helicobacter pylori and Epstein-Barr virus infection in
endoscopic and gastric cancer patients from North Brazil
Version:3Date:4 June 2014
Reviewer: M. Constanza Camargo
Reviewer's report:
While this revision represents an improvement on the original manuscript, the
following points still need to be addressed:
• As mentioned, the primary problem of the gastric cancer analysis is that the
contribution of H. pylori infection might be underestimated by tissue-based
testing using urease, PCR or any other method. The authors should clearly
acknowledge this limitation in the Discussion.
• The photomicrograph of EBER positivity in supposedly normal gastric mucosa
(Figure 2A) seems more consistent with gastritis. I recommend review by a
gastrointestinal pathologist with experience in EBER ISH. Moreover, the authors
should obtain independent confirmation of all histologic diagnoses of “normal.”
Misclassified cases of gastritis could explain their surprisingly high prevalence of
both H. pylori and EBV in normal mucosa.
Minor comments:
• Footnote “c” in Tables 1-3 indicates that H. pylori negative/cagA positive
samples were classified as cagA negative. The more common practice is to
group such samples with cagA positive.
• Typo noted in Table 3 (prevalence of EBV in females should be 2.5% instead of
8.3%).
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Occurrence of Helicobacter pylori and Epstein-Barr virus infection in
endoscopic and gastric cancer patients from North Brazil
Version:3Date:4 June 2014
Reviewer: M. Constanza Camargo
Reviewer's report:
While this revision represents an improvement on the original manuscript, the
following points still need to be addressed:
• As mentioned, the primary problem of the gastric cancer analysis is that the
contribution of H. pylori infection might be underestimated by tissue-based
testing using urease, PCR or any other method. The authors should clearly
acknowledge this limitation in the Discussion.
• The photomicrograph of EBER positivity in supposedly normal gastric mucosa
(Figure 2A) seems more consistent with gastritis. I recommend review by a
gastrointestinal pathologist with experience in EBER ISH. Moreover, the authors
should obtain independent confirmation of all histologic diagnoses of “normal.”
Misclassified cases of gastritis could explain their surprisingly high prevalence of
both H. pylori and EBV in normal mucosa.
Minor comments:
• Footnote “c” in Tables 1-3 indicates that H. pylori negative/cagA positive
samples were classified as cagA negative. The more common practice is to
group such samples with cagA positive.
• Typo noted in Table 3 (prevalence of EBV in females should be 2.5% instead of
8.3%).
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Occurrence of Helicobacter pylori and Epstein-Barr virus infection in
endoscopic and gastric cancer patients from North Brazil
Version:3Date:4 June 2014
Reviewer: M. Constanza Camargo
Reviewer's report:
While this revision represents an improvement on the original manuscript, the
following points still need to be addressed:
• As mentioned, the primary problem of the gastric cancer analysis is that the
contribution of H. pylori infection might be underestimated by tissue-based
testing using urease, PCR or any other method. The authors should clearly
acknowledge this limitation in the Discussion.
• The photomicrograph of EBER positivity in supposedly normal gastric mucosa
(Figure 2A) seems more consistent with gastritis. I recommend review by a
gastrointestinal pathologist with experience in EBER ISH. Moreover, the authors
should obtain independent confirmation of all histologic diagnoses of “normal.”
Misclassified cases of gastritis could explain their surprisingly high prevalence of
both H. pylori and EBV in normal mucosa.
Minor comments:
• Footnote “c” in Tables 1-3 indicates that H. pylori negative/cagA positive
samples were classified as cagA negative. The more common practice is to
group such samples with cagA positive.
• Typo noted in Table 3 (prevalence of EBV in females should be 2.5% instead of
8.3%).
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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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