Reviewer's report
Title:A pilot study of individualized comprehensive treatment for gastric cancer
with para-aortic lymph node metastases
Version:2Date:20 July 2015
Reviewer: Christoph Elsing
Reviewer's report:
The study of Guili Li describes the treatment of 47 (finally 46) patients with
gastric cancer and para-aortic lymph node metastases. Patients received first
neoadjuvant intravenous and intra-arterial chemotherapy and went then either to
surgery or in case of progressive or stable disease to further chemotherapy.
When patients responded to chemotherapy secondly they also received surgery.
Finally, 32 patients (69%) proceeded to surgery and were thereafter treated with
chemotherapy and local radiotherapy. Patients with surgery had in conclusion a
significant better survival (12 month vs. 29 month).
This study again shows that patients with gastric cancer benefit from surgery. So,
all attempt should be made to bring patients in operable conditions. This includes
also the proof that the cancer disease responds to chemotherapy. To reduce
toxicity, this chemotherapy can be given intravenous and intra-arterial and this is
the progress of this study.
In this very elective group of patients, this treatment protocol is a possible
alternative.
However, the treatment protocol and the indication for radiotherapy is not clearly
described. It would be also interesting to know how many patients with gastric
cancer were evaluated for the study but did finally not fulfill the inclusion criteria.
It seems that this group of patients represents a subgroup of gastric cancer
patients, since most of them had adenocarcinoma, were male and had a low
differentiation, how was the Her2 neu receptor status of this patient group.
In different part of the manuscript the language is not understandable, some
sentences are incomplete, there are errors in describing the treatment protocols,
etc… (lines 116/117, 187, 251, 275, 298, 306,326/327335-337)
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
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:A pilot study of individualized comprehensive treatment for gastric cancer
with para-aortic lymph node metastases
Version:2Date:20 July 2015
Reviewer: Christoph Elsing
Reviewer's report:
The study of Guili Li describes the treatment of 47 (finally 46) patients with
gastric cancer and para-aortic lymph node metastases. Patients received first
neoadjuvant intravenous and intra-arterial chemotherapy and went then either to
surgery or in case of progressive or stable disease to further chemotherapy.
When patients responded to chemotherapy secondly they also received surgery.
Finally, 32 patients (69%) proceeded to surgery and were thereafter treated with
chemotherapy and local radiotherapy. Patients with surgery had in conclusion a
significant better survival (12 month vs. 29 month).
This study again shows that patients with gastric cancer benefit from surgery. So,
all attempt should be made to bring patients in operable conditions. This includes
also the proof that the cancer disease responds to chemotherapy. To reduce
toxicity, this chemotherapy can be given intravenous and intra-arterial and this is
the progress of this study.
In this very elective group of patients, this treatment protocol is a possible
alternative.
However, the treatment protocol and the indication for radiotherapy is not clearly
described. It would be also interesting to know how many patients with gastric
cancer were evaluated for the study but did finally not fulfill the inclusion criteria.
It seems that this group of patients represents a subgroup of gastric cancer
patients, since most of them had adenocarcinoma, were male and had a low
differentiation, how was the Her2 neu receptor status of this patient group.
In different part of the manuscript the language is not understandable, some
sentences are incomplete, there are errors in describing the treatment protocols,
etc… (lines 116/117, 187, 251, 275, 298, 306,326/327335-337)
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
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:A pilot study of individualized comprehensive treatment for gastric cancer
with para-aortic lymph node metastases
Version:2Date:20 July 2015
Reviewer: Christoph Elsing
Reviewer's report:
The study of Guili Li describes the treatment of 47 (finally 46) patients with
gastric cancer and para-aortic lymph node metastases. Patients received first
neoadjuvant intravenous and intra-arterial chemotherapy and went then either to
surgery or in case of progressive or stable disease to further chemotherapy.
When patients responded to chemotherapy secondly they also received surgery.
Finally, 32 patients (69%) proceeded to surgery and were thereafter treated with
chemotherapy and local radiotherapy. Patients with surgery had in conclusion a
significant better survival (12 month vs. 29 month).
This study again shows that patients with gastric cancer benefit from surgery. So,
all attempt should be made to bring patients in operable conditions. This includes
also the proof that the cancer disease responds to chemotherapy. To reduce
toxicity, this chemotherapy can be given intravenous and intra-arterial and this is
the progress of this study.
In this very elective group of patients, this treatment protocol is a possible
alternative.
However, the treatment protocol and the indication for radiotherapy is not clearly
described. It would be also interesting to know how many patients with gastric
cancer were evaluated for the study but did finally not fulfill the inclusion criteria.
It seems that this group of patients represents a subgroup of gastric cancer
patients, since most of them had adenocarcinoma, were male and had a low
differentiation, how was the Her2 neu receptor status of this patient group.
In different part of the manuscript the language is not understandable, some
sentences are incomplete, there are errors in describing the treatment protocols,
etc… (lines 116/117, 187, 251, 275, 298, 306,326/327335-337)
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
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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