JerMa88/BMC_Gastroenterology_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02473-w (2022)

Title: The Application of magnetic anchoring traction device in assisting donor liver bench
surgery in classic orthotopic liver transplantation
Version: 2 Date: 09 May 2022
Reviewer:  Francesca Marcon
Reviewer's report:
I read with great interest this paper on the use of MAT devices to help in liver back table
preparation for implantation. Although I understand the enthusiasm generated by 30 minutes
saved in preparing the liver, I do not see any true advantage in using this type of device: the
rate of injuries is almost the same, and particularly no injuries were reported during the arterial
preparation, which is the most delicate part of the back bech and could jeopardise the entire liver
transplant procedure and thus patient's safety.
I also have to question about the methodology. The grafts were assigned to the two groups
according Authors' preferences and without a randomization, which could have led to biases.
Also, is there any particular reason why you used only DCD and not DBD too? You did not
specified if these grafts were eventually refused for transplantation because of ?cirrhosis ?others,
and went for research only?
And finally, if we agree that this device could partially overcome staff shortage, we must always
bear in mind that this can never replace a good mentoring from an experienced surgeon to a
more junior one. And if this last is not able to properly expose the vessels or the tissue, probably
s/he should be taught better instead of being replaced by a magnetic device.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02473-w (2022)

Title: The Application of magnetic anchoring traction device in assisting donor liver bench
surgery in classic orthotopic liver transplantation
Version: 3 Date: 25 Jul 2022
Reviewer:  Charles D. Boucek
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript describes the use of a magnetic anchoring traction device to assist in the back-
table preparation of liver grafts for transplantation. Preparation of the graft is an important part
of the transplantation operation;  appropriate trimming of blood vessels permits efficient graft
placement prior to reperfusion. Graft preparation is carried out in an ice bath and securing the
graft for inspection and trimming can be both awkward and time consuming and an assistant(s)
may be required. Trimming of the infra-hepatic and supra-hepatic IVC were performed faster
using the device; trimming of the portal vein and biliary tract required similar time to the
traditional approach without the device but exposure was better when the device was used. The
photographs show the device in use but a more thorough description of the device would be
appreciated.
The device may also be useful in teaching the technical aspects of graft preparation to surgical
fellows in training using grafts that are found to be unsuitable to transplantation.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02515-3 (2022)

Title: Associations of patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and
NUTRISCORE with survival in gastric cancer patients: timing matters, a retrospective cohort
study
Version: 1 Date: 16 Jun 2022
Reviewer:  Xiangliang Liu
Reviewer's report:
The study is novel in its choice of topic, assessing the possibility of a joint assessment of the
traditional gold standard and a relatively recent emerging score, which is innovative. The design
of the study is reasonable, the data can be processed using appropriate statistical methods, the
results can be interpreted appropriately, and the question of assessment tools and timing for
gastric cancer patients can be answered to a certain extent, but there are still some questions that
need to be answered in this paper.
1. the design of the intended study chose the PG-SGA, a traditional gold standard for the
assessment of oncology patients, a tool that can assess the risk of malnutrition and the degree of
malnutrition, and why the NUTRISCORE score was chosen as the tool for the joint assessment
when the joint was chosen, simply because this tool has not been validated, or some other factors.
2. in the absence of a detailed description in the article of how the selection of time points was
made and whether the determination of the three time points was supported by previous studies.
3. the authors applied a large number of tables to corroborate the authenticity of the article,
whether the results of the determination and analysis of serum nutritional (albumin, prealbumin,
etc.) and anthropometric indicators (calf muscle circumference, muscle strength, etc.) according
to patients under different scoring classifications (e.g., PG-SGA >9, NUTRISCORE >5) were
conducted, and whether the serological results possess a stronger objectivity compared to the
scale and can be used to a certain To a certain extent, the authors' opinion can be testified. The
authors also mentioned in their discussion previous studies of this type, so this part of the data
could be considered for addition.
The results of this study show that the PG-SGA has demonstrated its superiority as a prognostic
assessment tool; in view of the performance of the NUTRISCORE and the existence of some
confounding factors between the two, is it necessary to recommend a combined analysis at 2-3
months postoperatively in the conclusions.
5. As mentioned by the authors limitations: due to the inconsistent number of people in each
assessment, it is likely that the study conclusions are biased due to factors such as adherence
and inclusion of candidates.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02515-3 (2022)

Title: Associations of patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and
NUTRISCORE with survival in gastric cancer patients: timing matters, a retrospective cohort
study
Version: 1 Date: 24 Jun 2022
Reviewer:  X. Zhang
Reviewer's report:
This paper explored whether the timing of the nutrition assessment was associated with survival
among gastric cancer patients.
I have several general comments:
1. The authors found that high PG-SGA scores at 2 months after gastrectomy were associated
with an increased risk of mortality for 9-11 vs. #5 of PG-SGA scores. However, the increased
risk of mortality was not significant for #12 vs. #5 of PG-SGA scores. The authors should explain
why patients with severe malnutrition status (PG-SGA scores#12) was not associated with worse
survival outcome.
2. The authors reported an inverse association for the NUTRISCORE assessed at 1 month
(median days = 32 days after surgery). The authors should explain why patients with malnutrition
risk (NUTRISCORE=5 or 6) showed lower mortality than those without malnutrition
(NUTRISCORE#4).
3. The authors reported the association between PG-SGA scores and mortality tended to persist
for third nutritional consultation. The p values should be provided for 9-11 vs. #5 of PG-SGA
scores group. Because the confidence intervals of HRs were relatively wide.
4. Anticancer treatment was an important covariate, it should be adjusted in multivariate Cox
regression analysis.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02515-3 (2022)

Title: Associations of patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and
NUTRISCORE with survival in gastric cancer patients: timing matters, a retrospective cohort
study
Version: 2 Date: 13 Sep 2022
Reviewer:  Xiangliang Liu
Reviewer's report:
The investigators have responded to the review comments one by one, and to a certain extent
the quality of the article has been revised and improved. Although there are still shortcomings
in the data, I think the article explores the value of the clinical application of new nutritional
tools and makes the article relevant for publication.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02515-3 (2022)

Title: Associations of patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and
NUTRISCORE with survival in gastric cancer patients: timing matters, a retrospective cohort
study
Version: 2 Date: 19 Sep 2022
Reviewer:  X. Zhang
Reviewer's report:
There was no other comments for this manuscript.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02519-z (2022)

Title: Differential diagnosis of Crohn's disease and intestinal tuberculosis: development and
assessment of a nomogram prediction model
Version: 2 Date: 22 Mar 2022
Reviewer's report:
The authors address a clinically important question of differentiating CD and ITB in the
developing regions which are endemic for intestinal TB, and where the prevalence of CD
is increasing. The study has been well performed, statistically sound and relevant. Some
suggestions
1. Can the authors describe the multivariate analysis in further detail, especially about the other
parameters which were significant in univariate analysis.
2. 60% patients with ITB had pulmonary involvement. How was it diagnosed, and were all these
patients having active TB ?
3. If no patient with CD had pulmonary TB (0 vs60%), then why was this feature not significant
in multivariate analysis ?
4. Similarly, there are some other features which are having a very high odds ratio in univariate
analysis but are not coming significant in univariate analysis.
5. The study will improve if the authors validate this model in a separate cohort of patients with
CD and ITB.
6. There are spelling errors at places.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02519-z (2022)

Title: Differential diagnosis of Crohn's disease and intestinal tuberculosis: development and
assessment of a nomogram prediction model
Version: 2 Date: 08 Jul 2022
Reviewer's report:
I would like to congratulate the authors on discussing a very pertinent  topic . However going
through the article , I would like to offer a few comments
1. The topic is increasingly been discussed with a number of prediction models already being
published including those from regions with  high TB incidence
2. Therefore the introduction need to be edited to highlight the importance of this study citing
relevant stats: What is the statistics of TB and Crohn's in your region and how does it differ from
rest of the world including the developing world
3. You have cited studies with small sample size.  However, your study suffers from the same
drawback: 133 patients (CD 90 and ITB 43)
4. You have added the histological appearance of granuloma into your  nomogram(37.2% of
patients with ITB and in 16.7% of patients with CD (P =0.009) . Curiously caseation necrosis
has not been found to be clinically significant. Is the appearance of only granuloma i.e, in the
absence of caseation necrosis  a confounding variable?
5. The discussion is pertinent to the results but may be edited
6. Lastly mistakes in grammar and syntax may be improved in consultation with a native English
language expert.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02519-z (2022)

Title: Differential diagnosis of Crohn's disease and intestinal tuberculosis: development and
assessment of a nomogram prediction model
Version: 3 Date: 22 Aug 2022
Reviewer's report:
The authors have addressed most of the comments by reviewers.
However, minor concerns remain
1. In the introduction authors mention that “China has the highest incidence of IBD in Asia at
3.44 per 100,000 population per year, with the incidence of CD at 1.22 per 100,000 population
per year”. However, in a population based study from India, the incidence of UC was 6/100,000
population (Gut. 2003 Nov;52(11):1587-90).
2. Validation in a separate cohort could have added strength to the study. Authors should mention
this as a limitation.
3. Though the authors report very high predictive value of interferon gamma release assays, a
recent study from India reported a very poor diagnostic accuracy of IGRA in this setting (Intest
Res. 2022 Jun 13. doi: 10.5217/ir.2022.00010). Authors should discuss this study, and mention
as a limitation, about the applicability of their model in other TB endemic areas.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02525-1 (2022)

Title: The CT-based intratumoral and peritumoral machine learning radiomics analysis in
predicting lymph node metastasis in rectal carcinoma
Version: 1 Date: 31 Aug 2022
Reviewer's report:
The authors constructed and validated clinical and machine learning nomogram to predict the
lymph node metastasis (LNM) status of rectal carcinoma (RC) based on radiomics and clinical
characteristics. I have some minor concerns after reading the paper as shown below.
1. The authors mentioned “While to best of our knowledge, the routine CT-based intratumoral
and peritumoral radiomics analysis have been neglected.” As we know, many papers have been
published using intratumoral and peritumoral imaging features. I have just performed a quick
search on WOS (https://www.webofscience.com/wos) using the keywords “CT intratumoral and
peritumoral radiomics analysis” and 19 results are present. It would be better that the authors
have a thorough literature review of the topic and introduce the related study.
2. The authors expanded 5mm from the margin of the tumor to obtain the VOI-pt. Please explain
why the authors used 5mm instead of other values?
3. It would be better that the authors present the VOI-it and VOI-pt in one figure using different
colors to avoid confusion.
4. How many patients were included when calculating the intra-observer correlation coefficient?
It’s not appropriate that the authors use the mean values of radiomics features between two
radiologists in further analysis.
5. The authors used four steps to screen radiomics features, and the accumulative error might
be an issue that should be discussed.
6. It would be necessary to include the purpose of the author for plotting the heat map (Figure 4).
7. The written language part could be further improved. I recommend having this manuscript go
through the eyes of English-speaking colleagues for improvement.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02525-1 (2022)

Title: The CT-based intratumoral and peritumoral machine learning radiomics analysis in
predicting lymph node metastasis in rectal carcinoma
Version: 1 Date: 04 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
The paper demonstrated that the preoperative assessment of lymph node metastasis (LNM) plays
an important role in adjuvant therapy as well as surgery, but current radiological techniques
lacking consensus on a standard definition of LNM limited its diagnostic accuracy. The author
proposed that the intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics based Bayes analysis can help predict
the LNM status of RCs and the bayes analysis. The paper is generally clearly written but missing
many technical details. Some points below could be addressed to improve the manuscript.
1. In discussion section, the author argued that their study focused on the radiomics-based
machine learning to predict the LNM status of RCs, then the logic of using clinical-Bayes
nomogram which can provide a better production is unclear.
2. The best AUC of radiomics-based machine learning methods is only around 0.65, which is
not a good discrimination in classification. Also, the results from other comparison methods,
e.g., KNN, LR, SVM and DT, are missing.
3. In Figure 1, the author mentioned the ten-fold cross-validation (data randomly partitioned into
10 parts, 9 parts used for training and the rest 1 for testing), but the paper used 7:3 and didn’t
explain how to do the cross-validation.
4. The author mentioned that they use GBDT methods to select the features, but they didn’t
provide the ranking of the features in the paper and supplementary methods, even not a total
number of features. It is better to see how the parameters are set and whether the features selected
are meaningful.
5. The author mentioned that to improve the predictive efficacy, the significant clinical factors
were considered. However, they didn’t explain how they select those features and whether they
use the clinical features and radiomics features together. If clinical-Bayes nomogram can achieve
much higher AUC, then whether the radiomics-based methods are meaningful.
6. No code in the provided github.
7. It is better to add more explanations for the figures, e.g., Figure 4, how to read the figure,
what is the x-axis and y-axis represent.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02525-1 (2022)

Title: The CT-based intratumoral and peritumoral machine learning radiomics analysis in
predicting lymph node metastasis in rectal carcinoma
Version: 3 Date: 28 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
I appreciate that the authors have made substantial changes according to the modification
comments. Themodifications are sufficient and cover all the reviewer comments, and I suggest
that this paper be accepted withoutfurther modification.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02580-8 (2022)

Title: Efficacy and safety of heparin plus dexamethasone after partial splenic embolization for
liver cirrhosis with massive splenomegaly
Version: 3 Date: 29 Jul 2022
Reviewer's report:
Technique: why you used this size 300-500, didn’t you use the larger size 500-700 to decrease
the incidence of complications. Didn’t you use Embospheres microspheres in your cases?
Did you give antibiotics before the operation?
Did you add antibiotics to the pva?
What about the immunization before the operation (h influenza, meningococcal and
pneumococcal)
How did you choose this dose from LMWT heparin (4000IU) and dexamethasone (5mg)?
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02580-8 (2022)

Title: Efficacy and safety of heparin plus dexamethasone after partial splenic embolization for
liver cirrhosis with massive splenomegaly
Version: 3 Date: 02 Oct 2022
Reviewer:  Jin-hui Yang
Reviewer's report:
I appreciate the opportunity to review this manuscript. The authors conducted a case-control
study of the Efficacy and safety of heparin plus dexamethasone after PSE for liver cirrhosis with
massive splenomegaly. As expected, the PSE+Hep+DEX group was  effective  and having the
higher safety. While these findings are not novel, there are no major methodologic issues that
I could find.
Comments:
1. The authors used volume software within Siemens CT workstation to calculate  the volume
of splenic embolism area and embolization rate, and  Imaging examination to reexamine after
operation,  but I could not find any related imaging evidence. Recommend to supplement
relevant imaging evidence.
2. The author used the T test when analyzing the measurement data, but only the  data conforms
to the normal distribution is suitable for the T test. Recommended to supplement  the validation
of normal distribution.
3. Why the number of PLT in the PSE+Hep+DEX group was higher than that in the PSE group
at one week and one month after treatment? I could not find this in the discussion section.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02580-8 (2022)

Title: Efficacy and safety of heparin plus dexamethasone after partial splenic embolization for
liver cirrhosis with massive splenomegaly
Version: 4 Date: 02 Nov 2022
Reviewer:  Jin-hui Yang
Reviewer's report:
The authors addressed most of my concerns.
Minor comments:
It is not necessary to describe the validation of normal distribution in the text, select an
appropriate statistical method to analyze the data after that and describe it in the Statistical
methods section is enough.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02530-4 (2022)

Title: Comparison of efficiency and safety between dual-clip and rubber band-assisted ESD and
conventional ESD for colonic lateral spreading tumors (LSTs) with different levels of technical
difficulty: A retrospective case-control study
Version: 1 Date: 28 Jul 2022
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity of reviewing a manuscript titled “Comparison of
efficiency and safety between dual-clip and rubber band-assisted ESD and conventional ESD
for colonic lateral spreading tumors (LSTs) with different levels of technical difficulty: A
retrospective case-control study”.
This manuscript is well written, but I have a suggestion as follows.
1. Authors described the following exclusion criteria in the methods,
(3) unplanned DCRB-ESD cases whose clips and rubber band application were not planned until
the trimming process was jammed for a long time, also due to the impact on the outcome of
operation duration and the introduced heterogeneity
On the other hand, authors describe the following in the discussion. “When planning ESD
treatment, the endoscopist tends to not apply DCRB in easy cases; therefore, most of the easy
cases were included in the C-ESD group, resulting in limited cases in the DCRB-ESD group.”
I don’t know when and how the operator chose either C-ESD or DCRB-ESD. If the operator
chose DCRB-ESD for difficult cases, I understand it. If so, however, their exclusion criteria
may be inappropriate. Authors should describe how to choose either C-ESD or DCRB-ESD or
reconsider its exclusion criteria.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02530-4 (2022)

Title: Comparison of efficiency and safety between dual-clip and rubber band-assisted ESD and
conventional ESD for colonic lateral spreading tumors (LSTs) with different levels of technical
difficulty: A retrospective case-control study
Version: 1 Date: 02 Aug 2022
Reviewer:  Hideharu Ogiyama
Reviewer's report:
The authors conducted a single center retrospective study in which the aim was to evaluate the
effectiveness of dual-clip and rubber band-assisted submucosal dissection. This is an important
question to answer. I would like to raise some points to improve this manuscript.
Major comments
1.
Why did you exclude the patients with rectal cases?
I think there are rectal cases in which traction in ESD is effective.
Please describe this point.
2.
You excluded unplanned DCRB-ESD cases.
These cases are the cases that should be treated with DCRB and it would be helpful to clarify
the characteristics of these cases. So, you should add more description.
3.
Is there another factor that the cases with CRESD score0 need more time other than the factor
that endoscopist tends to not apply DCRB in easy cases?
I think there is a possibility that in easier lesions it takes additional time to use the dual-clip and
rubber band and it takes more time.
You should discuss whether it is better not to use DCRB with easy lesions (CRESD score0).
4.
The analysis in table2 is based on the clinical score model for grading the technical difficulty
of colorectal ESD and if the scoring system has already published you should cite the paper. If
not, the summary of the results based on this score should be described.
5.
Is there any situation that it becomes difficult to perform ESD if you use DCRB?
Minor comments
1.
p.14, lines 11 -14
“In subgroups with a score of 4-5, the between-group operation duration was not significantly
different due to limited cases, although these values differed greatly (100.5 vs. 55.5 and p =
0.33, 142 vs. 176 and p =1.0, respectively)”
You should clarify which time is DCRB-ESD or C-ESD. It is confusing.
2.
4 cases need several DCRB sets. You should describe the characteristics of these cases.
3.
p.3, lines 21 -22
I think the median ESD operation time of DCRB-ESD and C-ESD is reversed. Please correct.
4.
What is CS -CRESD 0? According to the prediction model you described, the minimum score is
1. I think “1 point when size < 50 mm, 2 points when size # 50mm.”  is a mistake. Please correct.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02530-4 (2022)

Title: Comparison of efficiency and safety between dual-clip and rubber band-assisted ESD and
conventional ESD for colonic lateral spreading tumors (LSTs) with different levels of technical
difficulty: A retrospective case-control study
Version: 1 Date: 14 Aug 2022
Reviewer's report:
In ESD, the success or failure of treatment depends on the approach to the submucosal layer.
Traction devices are useful to make this easier. As you say, there seems to be no difference in
easy cases, but it is thought to be done by skilled endoscopy doctors. Even cases that are easy
for beginners will be effective.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02530-4 (2022)

Title: Comparison of efficiency and safety between dual-clip and rubber band-assisted ESD and
conventional ESD for colonic lateral spreading tumors (LSTs) with different levels of technical
difficulty: A retrospective case-control study
Version: 2 Date: 14 Sep 2022
Reviewer:  Hideharu Ogiyama
Reviewer's report:
The revised manuscript has been well revised by the author.
I think it is worth accepting.
Only one point needs to be corrected.
p.16, lines 2 - 3
“although DCRB-ESD was faster than C-ESD greatly (100.5 vs. 55.5 and p = 0.33, 172 vs. 146
and p =1.0, respectively)”
It should be corrected as follows.
“although DCRB-ESD was faster than C-ESD greatly (55.5 vs. 100.5 and p = 0.33, 146 vs. 172
and p =1.0, respectively”
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02530-4 (2022)

Title: Comparison of efficiency and safety between dual-clip and rubber band-assisted ESD and
conventional ESD for colonic lateral spreading tumors (LSTs) with different levels of technical
difficulty: A retrospective case-control study
Version: 2 Date: 15 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors,
The authors answered all queries appropriately.
Your revised manuscript was improved as reviewer’s comment. Therefore, I have no additional
comment to the revised version.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02568-4 (2022)

Title: Risk factors of active upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients with COVID-19 infection
and the effectiveness of PPI prophylaxis
Version: 1 Date: 03 Oct 2022
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for the opportunity to review this article. In their paper, the authors have investigated
the risk factors for UGIB in patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 and have found that a higher
GBS and a lack of PPI prophylaxis were significant predictors of UGIB.
The strength of this paper:
·         This topic fits the scope of your journal.
·         It covers a big sample of patients hospitalized with COVID-19
·         They controlled both groups for other established risk factors for COVID-19 (antiplatelets
and anticoagulants).
·         They provided multivariate analysis to validate the identified risk factors
Comments:
·        I disagree with the author's statement that says "To our knowledge, this is the first study
reporting the incidence of only UGIB in patients with COVID-19." There are many reports in
well respected journals that reported the rate of UGIB in patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
·       The findings of this study support the widespread use of PPI prophylaxis in
patients hospitalized with COVID-19. However, many papers investigating PPI use in patients
with COVID-19 have reported worsened outcomes in patients using PPIs due to increased
vulnerability to the effect of high viral loads. The authors should address the contradicting results
that they provide in their discussion.
I have no other particular comment for the authors, I think the article is well-written and
well-structured and provides an interesting insight into the risk factors of UGIB in patients
with COVID-19, but findings must be put in context and discussed compared to similar and
contradicting findings that have been reported in the literature.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02568-4 (2022)

Title: Risk factors of active upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients with COVID-19 infection
and the effectiveness of PPI prophylaxis
Version: 2 Date: 04 Nov 2022
Reviewer:  Thibault Sixt
Reviewer's report:
For the authors, thank you for your answers and corrections to the various remarks and
comments.
The answers are satisfying even if some data is missingand bring more consistency to the
manuscript.
I have no new comments to make.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02543-z (2022)

Title: Epidemiology and prognostic analysis of patients with pancreatic  signet ring cell
carcinoma: a population-based study
Version: 1 Date: 08 Aug 2022
Reviewer's report:
In this study, the Authors  determined the epidemiological characteristics , the prognostic
impact of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy in patients with pancreatic signet ring cell
carcinoma. A total of 585 patients with PSRCC were collected from a SEER database.  The
Authors concluded that: 1)PSRCC is a highly malignant tumor that predominates in elderly, male
and black patients.2) About 67% patients with PSRCC had distant metastasis at diagnosis, and
the overall prognosis was poor. 3)The 1-, 2-, and 5-year observed survival rates were only 20.1%,
8.3%, and 3.4%, respectively. 4)Timely diagnosis, surgery and chemotherapy are effective at
improving the prognosis. 5) Married patients were associated with better outcomes.
PSRCC is a rare tumor and, obviously, relevant information about its biological behaviour
are lacking. However, I find difficult to believe that this study provides special findings to
characterize PSRCC because several informations from SEER database are missing.
- Grade of the tumor is unknown in more than half of the patients, lymph node status is unknown
in 81% of patients, primary site of tumor is reported as "others" in 28.5%, tumor size is unknown
in 202 patients (34.5%).
-Surprisingly, chemotherapy administration is unknown or not performed in 55% of patients.
-Stage of the tumor is reported to be "regional" in 158 patients: this term is unclear.
-In the section Results, line 158, it is reported that 112 patients underwent lymphadenectomy
while in line 164, surgery was performed in 100 patients.  Moreover, It is not reported the type
of surgery, in particular  the rate of pancreatic resection, unique operation that allow adequate
lymphadenectomy.
- The reason of better prognosis in married patients should be clarified.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02543-z (2022)

Title: Epidemiology and prognostic analysis of patients with pancreatic  signet ring cell
carcinoma: a population-based study
Version: 3 Date: 05 Oct 2022
Reviewer's report:
Dear Author,
I read with interest the manuscript you submitted to BMC Gastroenterology. As far as I can see,
you addressed all the comments provided by reviewers in the first place. I understand missing
data are unlikely to be fixed when retrospectively analyzing an administrative database as SEER.
However, this should be properly underlined in the manuscript, since it definitely constitutes
the major limitation of the study and prevents to draw absolute conclusions about the topics
under study.
Also, scientific English needs further improvement and proofreading before consideration for
publication in an international scientific journal.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02522-4 (2022)

Title: Prediction of long-term remission in patients following discontinuation of anti-TNF
therapy in ulcerative colitis - a 10 year follow up study
Version: 3 Date: 22 Jun 2022
Reviewer's report:
The paper requires language revision.
Introduction:
The sentence:
-Biological therapies for UC, including anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF),  Vedolizumab,
Ustekinumab and Tofacitinib, have shown high efficacy in achieving disease remission- after
12 months.
In the reference session, you cite only studies on Infliximab and vedolizumab, but as you know
adalimumab and golimumab are also approved for UC. Moreover, you named ustekinumab and
tofacitinib and this last is not a biological drug, but a small molecule.
- However, relapses in UC on biological maintenance therapy have been reported to be in the
range of 15 to 20% annually.
Do you mean loss of response?
I do not understand:
We have previously …..15 Your group? Later on, you write…  Our group reported similar results
in Crohn’s disease
After discontinuation mucosal TNF mRNA normalization…maybe it ‘s better normal value
What do you mean for “nearly cured”? It’ s a weird expression
Methods:
In the first report of clinical outcomes in UC patients following this algorithm, obtained between
October 2004 and June 2013, 116 patients were included Rephrase and shorten this sentence
The patient (THE PATIENTS) included and follow-up are described in figure 1
LTR means????? Longterm remission, but it’ s not reported the extensive definition
The LTR group is a new clinical phenotype seemingly cured of the disease. Remove this
sentence!!!It is a comment, not in the methods section
Was your definition of clinical remission steroid-free? You should specify it
A control group was included. In the first part of methods you should clarify the design of the
study.
Results
In the previous described subgroup LTR, 16 patients did not receive any medication except per
oral 5ASA in most cases.
The sentence is vague, refer to the figure and stop!
Is there any difference between the time to relapse among groups?
A graph could be useful to explain the results of cytokines essay.
Did you perform univariate analysis? You should include the results.
Discussion
You should shorten it and focus on main results.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02522-4 (2022)

Title: Prediction of long-term remission in patients following discontinuation of anti-TNF
therapy in ulcerative colitis - a 10 year follow up study
Version: 3 Date: 21 Jul 2022
Reviewer's report:
This study is a detailed and retrospective investigation of the relationship between the profiles of
various cytokine mRNAs in lesional mucosal tissues at the time of TNF inhibitor discontinuation
and the long-term course after its discontinuation in UC patients in whom remission was induced
by TNF inhibitors. As a result, the authors found that a decrease in TNFmRNA(Mucosal TNF
copies/µg mRNA < 10 000) and normalization of IL1RL1 in lesional mucosal biopsies taken at
the time of TNF inhibitor discontinuation were closely associated with the clinical course after
discontinuation. These results are clinically important for more optimal TNF inhibitor therapy,
and this report is considered suitable for publication in this journal.
However, the following points require modification or comment.
Major
(1) Was there any correlation between the time required from the start of TNF inhibitor treatment
to the induction of remission, or the duration of TNF inhibitor treatment from the start of
treatment to its discontinuation, and the low TNFmRNA levels in lesional mucosal tissues at
the time of discontinuation?.  In other words, was there a tendency for TNFmRNA levels in
lesional tissues to decrease with shorter time to induction of remission and longer duration of
TNF inhibitor therapy?
(2) Details regarding the site and number of biopsy tissues, which are the samples from which
cytokine mRNA is measured, need to be added.
(iii) In this new study, in which the observation period was extended, the criteria after
discontinuation of TNF inhibitors are more stringent than in the previous study. This may result
in differences in relapse rates after discontinuation of TNF inhibitors. It would be clinically
useful to clarify whether the clinical course after discontinuation differs between the earlier and
later periods, when the criteria for discontinuation are different.
The present study only included patients once remission was induced by TNF inhibitors, which
potently inhibit the nuclear transcription factor NF-kB, resulting in suppression of the production
and secretion of proinflammatory cytokines, including TNF-alpha. It is unclear whether similar
results would be demonstrated when treated with vedolizumab or JAK inhibitors, which have
different mechanisms of action. Therefore, additional comments regarding limitation are needed.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02529-x (2022)

Title: The impact of symptom distress on health-related quality of life in liver cancer patients
receiving arterial chemoembolization: the mediating role of hope
Version: 1 Date: 17 Aug 2022
Reviewer:  Gadiraju Padmaja
Reviewer's report:
Among the socio-demographic variables, age has also been considered. Was there a specific
age group that the study considered or was tehre a wide age range. If a wide age range was
considered, has there been an attempt to look at the effect of age variation? For example what
was the difference among young adults and older adults? Similarly was tyere an attempt to look
at family support - for example those with and those without family support?
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02529-x (2022)

Title: The impact of symptom distress on health-related quality of life in liver cancer patients
receiving arterial chemoembolization: the mediating role of hope
Version: 1 Date: 22 Aug 2022
Reviewer:  Wim Schrauwen
Reviewer's report:
Hope is certainly an important concept in cancer treatment, because it can make the present
moment less difficult to bear. If the patient believes that the disease tomorrow will be better,
they can bear a hardship today. The main sources of hope include the existence of a good
relationship with a close person, the possibility of achieving partial meaningful life goals, a
positively assessed life, a sense of self-worth, and spiritual support. On the other hand, the feeling
of loneliness, persistent pain and reduced self-esteem have a negative effect on hope. It also
shows that the patients hope is largely influenced by the quality of communication with doctors
and other healthcare professionals. (Slezácková 2020)
1.It's a bit strange to read an article about the contribution of hope in QOL in patients with liver
cancer, without saying much about the prognostic elements of the liver cancer, and the extent to
which patients were very aware of this. In the same way, the authors talk about the “importance
of continuing the therapy (TACE)” – at least, that is the way I interpret these words: Poor QOL
can further decrease the willingness of patients to complete the treatment course [14]). -  but
nothing about its short and long term survival, ie what is the hope that this treatment will benefit
patients? In the context of the treatment of a serious illness, hope can be seen as the expectation
of a future positive outcome that is personally valuable and realistically achievable.
2.I have questions on the way the concept of hope is seen regarding qol; these concepts are
closely related. The patients hope is closely related to his mental health, which is an important
component of quality of life. So hope can be seen as a part of qol.
3.The HHI was designed in 1991 to evaluate hope in young people with chronic illnesses.
It consists of 12 items responded to on a four-point Likert-type scale, from one (completely
disagree) to four (completely agree) (Nayeri et al, 2020). Can the authors demonstrate that this
(altered) version has sufficient validity.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02529-x (2022)

Title: The impact of symptom distress on health-related quality of life in liver cancer patients
receiving arterial chemoembolization: the mediating role of hope
Version: 2 Date: 09 Sep 2022
Reviewer:  Gadiraju Padmaja
Reviewer's report:
The authors appear to have addressed majority of the queries and suggestions.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02513-5 (2022)

Title: Expression of 5-hydroxytryptamine 7 receptor in intestinal mucosa correlates with the
degree of intestinal inflammation in Crohn's disease
Version: 1 Date: 22 Jul 2022
Reviewer's report:
Xu et al. reported that the expression of 5-hydroxytryptamine 7 receptor predicts the degree of
intestinal inflammation in Crohn´s Disease patients. The topic of the manuscript is quite relevant
since it points to a possible biomarker of the severity of these patients. For that reason, it includes
the analysis of a sufficient number of patients in both active and remission status, with a control
group without the disease. In spite of the fact that the manuscript includes enough number of
experiments to reach the main conclusion, for this reviewer there are some major concerns that
need to be addressed in order to be published in this journal.
- In the introduction, authors should explain more about the role of the receptor 5-HT7R in IBD.
They should also include all the results published in vitro and in vivo in order to highlight the
importance of this receptor.
- In Methods Section, authors mention immunohistochemistry, whereas they have performed
immunofluorescence. They should include the name of the specific fluorophores used. Authors
should repeat the experiment with a negative control in order to discard the autofluorescence
and also with Hoechst in order to show the nuclei and the architecture of the tissue analysed.
- Authors state that there is no protein in control patients but they have detected the gene
expression. How can they explain these discrepancies?
- Authors only show the expression of the receptor in Cd11c cells. Is it not expressed in any
other cell type?
- In all the correlations of the manuscript, authors have included the control group. The
correlations must be repeated only with CD patients in order to demonstrate that this receptor
positively correlates with intestinal inflammation.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02513-5 (2022)

Title: Expression of 5-hydroxytryptamine 7 receptor in intestinal mucosa correlates with the
degree of intestinal inflammation in Crohn's disease
Version: 4 Date: 17 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
The authors have adequately answered all my remarks and adapted the manuscript accordingly.
I have no further remarks
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02548-8 (2022)

Title: Barriers to Mutational Testing in Patients with Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST)
– A Survey of Life Raft Group Members
Version: 1 Date: 21 Jun 2022
Reviewer:  Juan Ángel Fernández
Reviewer's report:
This is a survey based study about the reasons why and why not a GISt patient  has a mutational
testing. The survey was applied to a group of patients with a strong relationship with LRG, a fact
that is the reason for the main drawback of the study, its  bias, as the results confirm. Anyway,
the results are consistent and provide a reason to congralute this non-profit organization for its
efforts.
To improve the work I suggest:
#1. To include Characteristis of the patients in the Results , not in Methods, with a Table.
#2. To describe in a deep fashion the statistical analysis done
#3. To include a statistical comparative analysis, with its significance, and not just to say
"slightly higher...", for example. What to compare: specialized vs non specialized center, large
vs small hospitals,  date of diagnosis, GIST risk  stratification.
Thank you very much
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02548-8 (2022)

Title: Barriers to Mutational Testing in Patients with Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST)
– A Survey of Life Raft Group Members
Version: 2 Date: 17 Oct 2022
Reviewer's report:
The authors acknowledged the selection bias in their population and have adhered to more
descriptive and less suggestive language. The outline of this manuscript, the description of the
results and the subsequent discussion section do meet the standard for publication.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02552-y (2022)

Title: Molecular subtyping based on TRP family and prognostic assessment for TRP-associated
lncRNAs in pancreatic adenocarcinoma
Version: 2 Date: 23 Aug 2022
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript entitled “TRP-associated lncRNAs exert crucial functions in prognosis and
immune microenvironment of pancreatic cancer: a bioinformatic analysis and experimental
verification” addresses bioinformatic methods of analyzing the implications of TRP-related
lncRNAs to pancreatic cancer prognosis. The objective of the study is original and important
for the field, however I found that some important issues have to be addressed.
Major comments:
1. The introduction should be related to pancreatic cancer, as several groups reported results
about the expression and the function of TRP channels, including bioinformatic tools used for
analysis. Please provide information about these papers and critically discuss their results in the
discussion section.
2. The manuscript lacks precision in describing the results. When TRP-associated lncRNAs are
mentioned, it is not clear which lNcRNAs with which TRP channels are associated. Specific
TRP genes should me mentioned at least for the most important results.  If there are 28 TRP
genes and 345 TRP-associated lncRNAs there must be some TRP genes that are associated with
more than one lnc-RNA. Please provide the information about these genes.
3. Please name at least the most important TRP genes in each of the clusters (A, B, C) and how
they are linked to the tumorigenic process.
3. It is not clear whether the indicated lncRNAs overexpressed in PC cell lines are related to
TRP genes. Please provide information about TRP genes expressed in these cell lines. Can you
prove that in cell cultures those TRP channels are related to these specific lncRNAs?
4. The title states that some TRP-associated lncRNAs exert crucial function in immune
microenviroment. I think that this relation is overestimated and should not be mentioned in
the title. While correlation between tumor-infiltrating immune cells to clinical outcomes in
pancreatic cancer is already reported in other studies, the present analysis fails to present a direct
relationship between these items: immune cells, PC, lncRNs and TRP channels.
Minor comments:
1. Number of samples (PATIENTS) extracted from TCGA with TRP expression.
2. The cell lines should be grown in the same culture media (RPMI or DMEM) because the
expression of TRP proteins depend on these growing conditions.
3. CNV should be defined.
4. It is not clear from the results whether the PC prognosis is correlated with mutation in TRP
genes or the expression of TRP genes. Please clarify.
5. The resolution of figures should be improved.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02552-y (2022)

Title: Molecular subtyping based on TRP family and prognostic assessment for TRP-associated
lncRNAs in pancreatic adenocarcinoma
Version: 2 Date: 29 Sep 2022
Reviewer's report:
This article includes a categorisation of pancreatic cancer patients into 3 subgroups based on
TPR-related genes, with a group of patients showing enriched immune signalling. The work also
presents a TPR-associated lncRNA risk signature and its association with immune infiltration
and tumour tissue and cells. The methods used could be applied to other families of proteins.
However, an expanded amount of detail in the description of the results and figure legends would
be beneficial to the reader.
I have the following suggestions for the paper: Throughout the paper, patient tumour samples
are referred to as pancreatic cancer . Although readers could assume that this is referring to
pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) from the context, it would be more informative to
explicitly mention which pancreatic cancer type is being referred to. The PAAD (pancreatic
adenocarcinoma) TCGA data set includes a small number of non-PDAC samples, if these were
included in the analysis, pancreatic adenocarcinoma should be used to describe the type of
pancreatic cancer described in the work.
Fig.1: It would be preferential if (A) could be done in another format, such as a stacked bar chart
and cBioPortal should be referenced in the text or the figure legend. Additionally, the font of
(D) could be made bigger so that the genes are easily read.
Fig.2: A label in the scale bar or just a comment of what the scale bar represents in the figure
legend is needed for (D) and (E).
Fig.3: (D) would benefit from a better explanation in the text, as it is not fully clear what the
significant differences refer to. If the cut-off statistical value and an explanation of the groups
compared could be included that could avoid confusion.
Fig.8: (D) & (E) PAAD TCGA only has 4 normal samples, the figure would benefit from the
inclusion of GTEx normal pancreas data to increase the n value. This can be done with another
analysis platform (GEPIA).
Review for 10.1186/s12876-022-02505-5 (2022)

Title: Association between metabolic syndrome and colorectal cancer incidence and all-cause
mortality: a hospital-based observational study
Version: 3 Date: 07 Apr 2022
Reviewer's report:
Using large national database from Taiwan, the authors revealed association between CRC and
the components of MetS. Patients with 3-4 components of MetS had a higher risk of CRC and
all-cause mortality than those with 1-2 components of MetS. To note, they also investigated the
effect of other components, such as co-morbidities and aspirin and/or statin intake. Their study
includes important clinical information and expand our knowledge of CRC.
Major revision:
1. Endoscopic removal of colorectal adenoma is important for primary prevention of colorectal
cancer. If the authors have data of colonoscopy, it would be interesting to do an analysis with
or without colonoscopy. If not, please add it in the limitation.
2. The preventive effect of metformin has been evaluated in RCT (Lancet Oncol 2016; 17:
475-83), the authors should address the association between DM and CRC more detail.