Title: Safety and Efficacy Analysis of Chemoradiotherapy/Radiotherapy Combined with
Nimotuzumab for Treating Advanced Unresectable Oesophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in
Elderly Patients: A Retrospective Analysis
Version: 0 Date: 15 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
This retrospective analysis is not suited to estimate efficacy and toxicity of a treatment, since
confounding factors cannot be ruled out. The purpose of the invetigation is not quite clear. Why
did the authors compare radiotherapy and Nimotuzumab with radiotherapy and chemotherapy
and Nimotuzumab. It has been known for many years that simultaneaous chemotherapy would
improve the outcome of radiotherapy. This has been confirmed by this study. The real question
is whether the addition of Nimotuzumab is improving the outcome in these patients compared to
radio-chemotherapy alone. All randomized studies which compared radio-chemotherapy with
or without anti-EGFR-antibodies have been negative. So it is hard to see a rationale to use
Nimotuzumab at all in esophageal cancer.
Table 1 should show patient characteristics in comparison of the two treatment arms. Similarly
the toxic effects shown in Table 2 should be given for each treatment arm separately.Quality of
life should be displayed for both treatment arms (Table 3) as well. Treatment allocation to the
patients has not been described clearly. Therefore the risk for a bias by patient selection might
be a problem in this study.
Title: Safety and Efficacy Analysis of Chemoradiotherapy/Radiotherapy Combined with
Nimotuzumab for Treating Advanced Unresectable Oesophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in
Elderly Patients: A Retrospective Analysis
Version: 0 Date: 15 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
This retrospective analysis is not suited to estimate efficacy and toxicity of a treatment, since
confounding factors cannot be ruled out. The purpose of the invetigation is not quite clear. Why
did the authors compare radiotherapy and Nimotuzumab with radiotherapy and chemotherapy
and Nimotuzumab. It has been known for many years that simultaneaous chemotherapy would
improve the outcome of radiotherapy. This has been confirmed by this study. The real question
is whether the addition of Nimotuzumab is improving the outcome in these patients compared to
radio-chemotherapy alone. All randomized studies which compared radio-chemotherapy with
or without anti-EGFR-antibodies have been negative. So it is hard to see a rationale to use
Nimotuzumab at all in esophageal cancer.
Table 1 should show patient characteristics in comparison of the two treatment arms. Similarly
the toxic effects shown in Table 2 should be given for each treatment arm separately.Quality of
life should be displayed for both treatment arms (Table 3) as well. Treatment allocation to the
patients has not been described clearly. Therefore the risk for a bias by patient selection might
be a problem in this study.
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Safety and Efficacy Analysis of Chemoradiotherapy/Radiotherapy Combined with
Nimotuzumab for Treating Advanced Unresectable Oesophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in
Elderly Patients: A Retrospective Analysis
Version: 0 Date: 15 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
This retrospective analysis is not suited to estimate efficacy and toxicity of a treatment, since
confounding factors cannot be ruled out. The purpose of the invetigation is not quite clear. Why
did the authors compare radiotherapy and Nimotuzumab with radiotherapy and chemotherapy
and Nimotuzumab. It has been known for many years that simultaneaous chemotherapy would
improve the outcome of radiotherapy. This has been confirmed by this study. The real question
is whether the addition of Nimotuzumab is improving the outcome in these patients compared to
radio-chemotherapy alone. All randomized studies which compared radio-chemotherapy with
or without anti-EGFR-antibodies have been negative. So it is hard to see a rationale to use
Nimotuzumab at all in esophageal cancer.
Table 1 should show patient characteristics in comparison of the two treatment arms. Similarly
the toxic effects shown in Table 2 should be given for each treatment arm separately.Quality of
life should be displayed for both treatment arms (Table 3) as well. Treatment allocation to the
patients has not been described clearly. Therefore the risk for a bias by patient selection might
be a problem in this study.
assistant