Title: Sarcopenia Is Associated with Prognosis in Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell
Cancer after Radiotherapy or Chemoradiotherapy
Version: 3 Date: 27 Dec 2021
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors:
Thank you for the revisions from the previous review.
For the revised manuscript, there are some recommendations:
1. Patients who received radiotherapy alone are included in the analysis, which may increased
the heterogeneity  and bias in the analysis. Please consider the necessity of having these patients
in the analysis.  If you decide to keep these patients in the analysis, you may need to have the
treatment (CRT vs RT) as a factor in the multivariate analysis even if it is not significant in the
univariate analysis because CRT has been well known to be better than RT for patients survival
and RT alone is not a standard treatment for these patients, which indicates that having these
patients in the analysis may invite a lot of unpredictable bias.
2. In the "treatment" section of "Material and Methods", it was said that "All patients treated with
platinum-based chemotherapy (median of 3 cycles, range 1-6 cycles). 63 patients received RT,
112 patients received concurrent CRT and 38 patients received sequential CRT."  Please clarify
whether all patients were treated with platinum-based chemotherapy and whether 63 patients
received RT alone.
3. In table 2, there may be an error in the HR of multivariate analysis of N stage.
4. There may be an error in the Figure 4a. The directions of albumin may be opposite.
5. There may be an error in the Figure 5d. The directions of anemia may be opposite.
Title: Sarcopenia Is Associated with Prognosis in Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell
Cancer after Radiotherapy or Chemoradiotherapy
Version: 3 Date: 27 Dec 2021
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors:
Thank you for the revisions from the previous review.
For the revised manuscript, there are some recommendations:
1. Patients who received radiotherapy alone are included in the analysis, which may increased
the heterogeneity  and bias in the analysis. Please consider the necessity of having these patients
in the analysis.  If you decide to keep these patients in the analysis, you may need to have the
treatment (CRT vs RT) as a factor in the multivariate analysis even if it is not significant in the
univariate analysis because CRT has been well known to be better than RT for patients survival
and RT alone is not a standard treatment for these patients, which indicates that having these
patients in the analysis may invite a lot of unpredictable bias.
2. In the "treatment" section of "Material and Methods", it was said that "All patients treated with
platinum-based chemotherapy (median of 3 cycles, range 1-6 cycles). 63 patients received RT,
112 patients received concurrent CRT and 38 patients received sequential CRT."  Please clarify
whether all patients were treated with platinum-based chemotherapy and whether 63 patients
received RT alone.
3. In table 2, there may be an error in the HR of multivariate analysis of N stage.
4. There may be an error in the Figure 4a. The directions of albumin may be opposite.
5. There may be an error in the Figure 5d. The directions of anemia may be opposite.
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Sarcopenia Is Associated with Prognosis in Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell
Cancer after Radiotherapy or Chemoradiotherapy
Version: 3 Date: 27 Dec 2021
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors:
Thank you for the revisions from the previous review.
For the revised manuscript, there are some recommendations:
1. Patients who received radiotherapy alone are included in the analysis, which may increased
the heterogeneity  and bias in the analysis. Please consider the necessity of having these patients
in the analysis.  If you decide to keep these patients in the analysis, you may need to have the
treatment (CRT vs RT) as a factor in the multivariate analysis even if it is not significant in the
univariate analysis because CRT has been well known to be better than RT for patients survival
and RT alone is not a standard treatment for these patients, which indicates that having these
patients in the analysis may invite a lot of unpredictable bias.
2. In the "treatment" section of "Material and Methods", it was said that "All patients treated with
platinum-based chemotherapy (median of 3 cycles, range 1-6 cycles). 63 patients received RT,
112 patients received concurrent CRT and 38 patients received sequential CRT."  Please clarify
whether all patients were treated with platinum-based chemotherapy and whether 63 patients
received RT alone.
3. In table 2, there may be an error in the HR of multivariate analysis of N stage.
4. There may be an error in the Figure 4a. The directions of albumin may be opposite.
5. There may be an error in the Figure 5d. The directions of anemia may be opposite.
assistant