Reviewer's report
Title:Diabetes mellitus impacts risk of macrovascular invasion in patients
undergoing transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma
Version: 1Date:26 September 2012
Reviewer: Alistair W Stewart
Reviewer's report:
This paper is clearly written. I have only a few relatively minor comments.
Minor Essential Revisions
Page 8: section on survival. The reporting of median survival times and then
mean survival times with other statistics is confusing. The standard deviation is
not a very useful statistic in this situation and the maximum survival is of no value
when about 50% of the patients have a censored survival time. This whole
paragraph needs tidying up to give the reader a clear picture of what has
occurred. The authors might like to consider a figure showing the survival curves
with 95%CI for these curves. This may be a better way of describing the
situation.
Table 1. There is extensive use of abbreviations in this table – these need to be
written in full or defined as a footnote. AFP (not described elsewhere) needs to
have a measure of variation reported as does the transplant wait list time. The
variation could be reported using inter quartile range.
Tables 2, 3 & 4. The number of decimal places should be reduced to an
appropriate level. It is ‘95% Confidence Limits’. Table 4 the P value for DM needs
correcting.
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Diabetes mellitus impacts risk of macrovascular invasion in patients
undergoing transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma
Version: 1Date:26 September 2012
Reviewer: Alistair W Stewart
Reviewer's report:
This paper is clearly written. I have only a few relatively minor comments.
Minor Essential Revisions
Page 8: section on survival. The reporting of median survival times and then
mean survival times with other statistics is confusing. The standard deviation is
not a very useful statistic in this situation and the maximum survival is of no value
when about 50% of the patients have a censored survival time. This whole
paragraph needs tidying up to give the reader a clear picture of what has
occurred. The authors might like to consider a figure showing the survival curves
with 95%CI for these curves. This may be a better way of describing the
situation.
Table 1. There is extensive use of abbreviations in this table – these need to be
written in full or defined as a footnote. AFP (not described elsewhere) needs to
have a measure of variation reported as does the transplant wait list time. The
variation could be reported using inter quartile range.
Tables 2, 3 & 4. The number of decimal places should be reduced to an
appropriate level. It is ‘95% Confidence Limits’. Table 4 the P value for DM needs
correcting.
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
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Diabetes mellitus impacts risk of macrovascular invasion in patients
undergoing transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma
Version: 1Date:26 September 2012
Reviewer: Alistair W Stewart
Reviewer's report:
This paper is clearly written. I have only a few relatively minor comments.
Minor Essential Revisions
Page 8: section on survival. The reporting of median survival times and then
mean survival times with other statistics is confusing. The standard deviation is
not a very useful statistic in this situation and the maximum survival is of no value
when about 50% of the patients have a censored survival time. This whole
paragraph needs tidying up to give the reader a clear picture of what has
occurred. The authors might like to consider a figure showing the survival curves
with 95%CI for these curves. This may be a better way of describing the
situation.
Table 1. There is extensive use of abbreviations in this table – these need to be
written in full or defined as a footnote. AFP (not described elsewhere) needs to
have a measure of variation reported as does the transplant wait list time. The
variation could be reported using inter quartile range.
Tables 2, 3 & 4. The number of decimal places should be reduced to an
appropriate level. It is ‘95% Confidence Limits’. Table 4 the P value for DM needs
correcting.
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
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