JerMa88/BMC_Gastroenterology_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-67 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Endoscopic resection of duodenal bulb neuroendocrine tumor larger than
10mm in diameter.
Version: 2Date:11 May 2011
Reviewer: Hironori Tsujimoto
Reviewer's report:
This paper is worth being accepted by BMC Gastroenterology.
Hironori Tsujimoto
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-67 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Endoscopic resection of duodenal bulb neuroendocrine tumor larger than
10mm in diameter.
Version: 2Date:11 May 2011
Reviewer: Stefan von Delius
Reviewer's report:
The authors have adressed my comments. Thank you very much and
congratulations.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-78 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:The comparison of grey-scale ultrasonic and clinical features of
hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma in children: a retrospective study
for ten years
Version: 1Date:20 December 2010
Reviewer: Radu Ion Badea
Reviewer's report:
In general this is an honest study related to an important topic and realized by a
group with practical experience. The aims are well defined; the methodology of
research and the results are credible. The conclusions are appropriate. The weak
points are related to the leak of Doppler evaluation, CEUS (even limited in
indication for children’s!), elastography that are recently introduced into the
practice. Even the pathology is quite rare, and there is a retrospective study, the
leak of the above technical points makes the study a little bit "historical"
I wish to stress that in the introduction the past is used instead of relation to the
actual experience as the literature is presenting it! e.g. "Two-thirds of the
pediatric primary liver tumors were malignant [1, 2]. Hepatoblastoma (HBL)
accounted for 40-60% of the liver tumors in children, which was the most
common malignant liver tumor in children [1, 3]. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)
accounted for about 20%, which was the second most common malignant liver
tumor in children [1, 4]. The two malignant liver tumors had some similar clinical
and imaging features but the prognosis and treatments were quite different. " I
suggest to the author to make appropriate revisions.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-78 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:The comparison of grey-scale ultrasonic and clinical features of
hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma in children: a retrospective study
for ten years
Version: 1Date:27 February 2011
Reviewer: Roxana Sirli
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory Revisions
- In the workout of a suspected tumor, imaging methods such as contrast MRI
and contrast CT have a very good diagnostic value. Have any been performed in
the series of patients included in the study? The authors should state it.
- Also, in inconclusive cases after imaging methods, a liver biopsy should be
performed for certifying the diagnosis, before treatment is initiated. From the
Patients and methods section I understood that in the majority of cases (25/42)
the tumor type was certified by the postoperative histological examination. A
comment should be added regarding this aspect.
- In the Patients and methods section, Ultrasonic image acquisition and analysis
– last paragraph ”The echo nature of the background liver was recorded as
hepatic cirrhosis or not.” Details should be added regarding the diagnosis criteria.
Also, the ultrasound aspect of the liver could be quite normal in cirrhosis, so what
other criteria were used for the diagnosis of liver cirrhosis.
- Was HCV infection searched for?
Minor Essential Revisions
- The figure numbers do not correspond to the legend (ex. Figure 3 –
corresponding legend is 2C, Figure 4-legend 2C, figure 5- legend 3A, etc)
- The English language should be revised by a native speaker; (ex – wrong use
of the past tense: first line of introduction “Two-thirds of the pediatric primary liver
tumors were malignant” and in the same paragraph „The two malignant liver
tumors had some similar clinical and imaging features but the prognosis and
treatments were quite different”.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-78 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:The comparison of grey-scale ultrasonic and clinical features of
hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma in children: a retrospective study
for ten years
Version: 2Date:15 April 2011
Reviewer: Roxana Sirli
Reviewer's report:
The majority of my questions were answered, except: were the patients tested for
HCV?
In the variant I received, the figures number (on the pictures) is still wrong.
English revision is still needed: "Two experienced ultrasound specialists,
respectively with 19 (Y. Peng) and 17(Y. Luo) years’ work experience and was
blinded to the diagnosis....", should be "Two experienced ultrasound specialists,
respectively with 19 (Y. Peng) and 17(Y. Luo) years’ work experience, who were
blinded to the diagnosis..."
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-77 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Unusual Manifestation of Erdheim-Chester Disease
Version: 1Date:19 April 2011
Reviewer: Maria Grazia Sabbadini
Reviewer's report:
This is an interesting case report, that describes a novel and rare localization of
the disease. The manuscript is well-written and clear. In the second paragraph of
the Discussion, the reference to the Veyssier-Belot diagnostic criteria is correct
but may be misleading - I would suggest to state more clearly that it is not
necessary that both criteria are satisfied.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-76 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Fully Covered Self-Expanding Metal Stents Placed Temporarily in the Bile
Duct: Safety Profile and Histologic Classification in a Porcine Model.
Version: 1Date:18 January 2011
Reviewer: Do Hyun Park
Reviewer's report:
As far as this reviewer is aware, this manuscript is the first study regarding
feasibility and histologic analysis of FCSEMS in animal model.
Although this study had a small sample size and frequent distal migration,
therefore, this study seemed to be deserved to publication. This reviewer has a
few of minor comments.
First, numbering of animal (#384, #339...) was appeared to be confusing. Please
provide simple number as #1, and #2.
Second, regarding distal migration, this group may be considered as control or
another group because this distal migration was earlier made (by 41-57 days
after stent deployment).
Third, flared end of stent may have related to more inflammation of bile duct
rather than other part because recent report regarding FCSEMS on pancreatic
duct showed a stent-induced stricture on flared end of FCSEMS (Moon et al.
Gastrointestinal Endoscopy 2010 Jul;72(1):86-91). Thus, separate histologic
analysis according to location of stent would be of interest.
Forth, due to anatomical difference, post-stenting pancreatitis after placement of
FCSEMS could not evaluate this study. Because post-stenting pancreatitis after
placement of FCSEMS may be an important issue on patients with benign biliary
strictures, limitation of this study on this topic may be added in the section of
discussion.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-76 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Fully Covered Self-Expanding Metal Stents Placed Temporarily in the Bile
Duct: Safety Profile and Histologic Classification in a Porcine Model.
Version: 1Date:26 February 2011
Reviewer: Jesús García-Cano
Reviewer's report:
I suggest in the abstract conclusions not to include the final statement “it remains
to be determined if FCSEMS can achieve sustained resolution of benign biliary
stricture in humans”. Because all the work has been to assess these stents are
easily to extract, even they can migrate spontaneously, and they do not cause
substantial injury in the bile duct, but not any stricture has been treated with
them. Instead it could be added something like “as the Wallflex fully covered
biliary stent is easy to remove after months in place and appears not to harm the
bile duct, it could be used to treat benign biliary strictures in humans”.
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-76 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Fully Covered Self-Expanding Metal Stents Placed Temporarily in the Bile
Duct: Safety Profile and Histologic Classification in a Porcine Model.
Version: 2Date:19 May 2011
Reviewer: Do Hyun Park
Reviewer's report:
No further recommendaton.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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 interest.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson's disease mice
Version: 1Date:16 August 2010
Reviewer: Elke Roeb
Reviewer's report:
In their work Chen and co-workers examined the effect of BM transplantation on
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson´s disease mice. They authors
describe an improvement of liver function and copper metabolism one to 12
weeks after Tx..
Although dealing with an interesting theme there are major concerns which have
to be eliminated before publication.
Major points:
The injection of saline does not represent an adequate control group. The
transplantation of BM cells from Wilson disease mice (toxic milk mice) into
Wilson disease mice, would be the right control in addition to the super control
(saline).
Since liver function and copper concentration are already improved one week
after transplantation it is rather speculative whether the kind of BM cells is
responsible for the improvement. This point should be elaborated in additinal
experiments.
The statistical analysis should be recalculated by a testing appropriate for not
normally distributed data (e.g. Mann-Whitney-U-Test). Alternatively the authors
should show a normal distribution before using the Students t test. The exact
N-number should be indicated in each single figure under each single column.
All together the manuscript seems to be too descriptive since the effect of BM
transplantation on the amelioration of liver function is far from being explained.
Minor points:
The authors should demonstrate whether liver fibrosis (collagen, hydroxyprolin or
sirius red staining) is influenced by BM-transplatation in toxic milk mice.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson's disease mice
Version: 1Date:6 October 2010
Reviewer: Valentina Medici
Reviewer's report:
Chen X et al. conducted a study on bone marrow transplantation in an animal
model of Wilson disease characterized by spontaneous hepatic copper
accumulation (the tx mouse). The authors transplanted bone marrow cells after
sublethal radiation. Mice were transplanted at early (2 months) or late stage (5
months). Donor cell population, parameters of copper metabolism (hepatic
copper concentration and serum ceruloplasmin), and AST levels were measured
at 1, 4, 8, and 12 weeks after transplant. The bone marrow cells population was
higher in the early transplanted group compared to the late transplanted group.
However, the expression of Syr gene peaked at 4 weeks and decreased rapidly
up to week 12. Hepatic copper concentration was lower and serum ceruloplasmin
higher in the early transplanted group. AST levels remained stable in the early
transplanted group while they actually decreased in the late transplanted group.
Previous studies demonstrated poor results after bone marrow stem cell
transplantation in the same animal model. In the current study, the main problem
is the short duration of copper metabolism correction and the short term liver
population. The same problem was encountered in previous studies.
Major critiques:
1) the hepatic copper concentration in the early group is lower than control group
at all time points. However, the control group presents a trend in reduction in
hepatic copper as well. Any explanation for this?
2) Why is hepatic copper level decreasing in the late group, both bone marrow
transplanted and control?
3) Similarly, why ceruloplasmin tends to increase in the late control group?
4) Why AST levels decrease in the late control group?
Other critiques:
the manuscript requires a major revision of the English language. For example:
- I recommend the use of “Wilson disease” instead of “Wilson's disease”
- Background, line 3: variable or various organs?
- Methods: “...were allocated to one of four groups as followed” or as follows
- Methods: please specify DNA method extraction
- Results, page 11, line 1: 2nd week or 4th week?
- Discussion: “we found that BM cells transplantation starting at 2 months of age
corrected liver injury”. I do not think the authors can make this conclusion. Their
study is not really looking at parameters of liver injury but essentially only at
metabolic parameters.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson's disease mice
Version: 1Date:19 October 2010
Reviewer: George J Brewer
Reviewer's report:
This paper, by Chen et al, is a followup to the work in ref 13 that shows that bone
marrow embryonic stem cells can improve liver function in the toxic milk mouse
model of Wilson's disease, and also to this group's own work showing that
embryonic hepatocytes can do the same.
Here they use embryonic bone marrow stem cells to evaluate the timing of
engraftment, and find that engraftment at 2 months gives better results than 5
months. The work is properly done and the paper adequately written except for
the following:
Minor essential revisions:The authors are very loose with their phraseology, often
saying Wilson's disease when they are referring to the mouse and other animal
models of Wilson's disease. For example this happens in the abstract
conclusions section. They should correct this throughtout the paper.
Major compulsory revision: A serious misstatement occurs in the first paragraph
of background where they imply that liver transplantation is useful for the
neurologic symptoms of Wilson's.
Transplantation will correct neurologic symptoms, but only to the extent that
anticopper drugs would correct them, which is much cheaper and safer.
Transplantation should never be done for neurologic reasons.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson disease mice
Version: 2Date:13 December 2010
Reviewer: Elke Roeb
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions:
1. Although mentioning the critical point in the first review the authors did not
include an additional control group. On the contrary they used D-hanks, a quite
different saline solution than in the control group as saline. From my point of view
this issue weakens the whole story. The authors cannot exclude that their effects
depends on the transplantation procedure itself. Therefore the Tx from Wilson
disease mice into Wilson disease mice is mandatory. It is clear that theoretically
there would be no effect but practically these experiments would exlude side
effects of Tx on the one hand or they show that Tx itself might include a kind of
treatment effect on the other hand.
The injection of saline does not represent an adequate control group. The
transplantation of BM cells in D-hanks from Wilson disease mice (toxic milk mice)
into Wilson disease mice, would be the right control in addition to the super
control (saline).
2. The statistical analysis should be recalculated by a testing appropriate for not
normally distributed data (e.g. Mann-Whitney-U-Test). Alternatively the authors
should show a normal distribution before using the Students t test. In the revised
version the authors tell about a normal distribution of their data. The test used
however is not mentioned. And is hard to believe that data are normally
distributed with n=6.
Minor Essential Revisions:
3. Still the manuscript seems to be too descriptive since the effect of BM
transplantation on the amelioration of liver function is far from being explained.
4. Also in the revised version the authors did not demonstrate whether liver
fibrosis (collagen, hydroxyprolin or sirius red staining) is influenced by
BM-transplatation in toxic milk mice. HE staining is not the appropiate staining. A
collagen staining would be adaequate. During the last two decades appropriate
papers including these techniques have been published by J. Iredale, R.
Weiskirchen, E. Roeb, D. Schuppan, or MP Arthur and others.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson disease mice
Version: 2Date:20 December 2010
Reviewer: Valentina Medici
Reviewer's report:
The authors properly addressed my comments and critiques.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson disease mice
Version: 2Date:31 December 2010
Reviewer: Nicole Buck
Reviewer's report:
They have added some new data to the manuscript, however they were
obviously unable to do more experimental work to complete the project. The
authors have however done a significant amount of work which is scientifically
sound, but are missing some controls which they plan on rectifying in future
experiments. Some of the conclusions are broad and do not take into account
non-hepatic sites.
The methods section is now more descriptive, however could the authors add the
details of the DNA extraction kit?
My major concern is still the statistical analysis. They have overlapping error
bars; however they claim the results are significantly different.
The English is also still a major problem.
For example,
1. The Abstract background section (second sentence) makes no sense to me.
2. Orthotropic should be orthotopic (spelling)
3. "BM cells" abbreviation should be checked for context to correct the use of
"cell" or "cells"
4. Ref #14 should be Allen not Allan.
etc
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson disease mice
Version: 2Date:31 December 2010
Reviewer: George J Brewer
Reviewer's report:
This paper is now acceptable for publication. I have answered your various
questions on my previous review.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-75 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson disease mice
Version: 3Date:19 April 2011
Reviewer: Elke Roeb
Reviewer's report:
The authors properly addressed all my comments and criticisms. Nevertheless
the manuscript should be reviewd by a native speaker.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-72 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Caustic ingestion in adults: The role of age in predicting outcome
Version: 1Date:14 February 2011
Reviewer: Burak Tander
Reviewer's report:
This is a nice study with excellent statistical evaluation. It is undoubtly worth
publishing, still there is some points to revise:
1. There are some reports considering the unnecessity of early endoscopic
examination in patients with caustic ingestion in children as well as in adults. As
the authors mentioned, some of them are very recent studies (e.g. Bicakci U et al
in 2010).
2. It is stated in the body of the text that the youngest age is 17 and the oldest
one is 107 years old; but in Table 2, the age range is between 26 and 77 years.
3. It is interesting that no single patient is between age of 45 and 68 according to
the Table 2!!
4. As seen in Table 2, the authors examined duodenum in most of the patients.
They also found the most severe damage in the esophagus in many cases. It
seems that the authors passed the endoscope through the injured esophageal
segment in many cases. This maneuver must have been quite dangerous.
5. Why did the authors not administrate antibiotics to all of the patients?
6. Replace “Kaplan-Miere” with “Kaplan-Meier”
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-72 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Caustic ingestion in adults: The role of age in predicting outcome
Version: 1Date:23 February 2011
Reviewer: Rakesh Kochhar
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
Cheng et al in this study have analysed the outcome of patients with caustic
ingestion based on age, less than and more than 65 years. They have concluded
that elderly patients had more systemic complications and poorer outcome than
younger patients.
Material and methods : Definitions of systemic and GI complications should be
given in this section.
Results
1. The authors have straight away gone on to give analysis of their data. They
need to first give the detailed results, the spectrum of injury and the way the
patients were managed. What were the complications, what were the infections
and how were they managed etc.
2. Causes of mortality should be added.
3. HOW LONG WERE THE PATIENTS FOLLOWED UP ?
4 What were the comorbidities in the 2 groups ?
Discussion
IN this section the authors should discuss the results primarily with differences in
the 2 groups giving explanation for their findings. For example they need to
discuss the importance of endoscopic grading in the 2 groups. Similarly they
should discuss wheather it just the pre existing co morbidity which affects the
outcome . And are the systemic complications due to only their elderly age. Or is
it the hospitalisation that is responsible for the negative outcome.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-72 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:The Role of Age in Predicting the Outcome of Caustic Ingestion in Adults:
A Retrospective Analysis
Version: 2Date:15 May 2011
Reviewer: Sandro Contini
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript has been modified according to the comments and suggestions
of the referees and in my opinion is suitable for publication.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-72 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:The Role of Age in Predicting the Outcome of Caustic Ingestion in Adults:
A Retrospective Analysis
Version: 2Date:22 May 2011
Reviewer: Rakesh Kochhar
Reviewer's report:
The paper has been revised and most of reviewer's comments answered
satisfactorily.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-74 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Multi-susceptibility genes associated with esophageal squamous cell
cancer risk and their potential use to identify subjects at high risk
Version: 1Date:11 February 2011
Reviewer: Fumiaki Tanaka
Reviewer's report:
COMMENTS
The authors report in this manuscript that they examined that the association of
the ALDH2 and MTHFR polymorphisms is important in carcinogenesis of ESC in
Feicheng County, China.
This manuscript contains potentially interesting facts that could be utilized for
understanding the mechanisms of the carcinogenesis of esophageal cancer.
However, this reviewer need to raise concerns listed below.
Major concerns:
1. Conducting the analysis of polymorphisms of toward carcinogenesis, the
number of this study was too small to obtain the conclusion. More than thousand
patients and healthy controls would be needed. This paper indicated just a
sample of a county in China. Page 12, the first paragraph, the last two
sentences, no information was mentioned in this study. It’s just imagination.
2. This reviewer could no find the reason why the authors selected the genes
(ALDH2, MTFHR, CYP2E1, MPO, hOGG1). There are lots of other genes that
have been reported concerning the relation with ESCC.
3. This reviewer requires more limitations of this study. The third paragraph on
page 14 is insufficient,
4. Page 14, the second paragraph, “This finding will be benefit to detect a
higj-risk population~”. Which country can pay for detecting ESC candidate in the
world?
Minor concerns:
1. Some type errors were found, such as page 2, line 9 (ALHD), page 5, line 12
(health checkup)
2. Figure 1 can be deleted. No informative figure.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-74 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Multi-susceptibility genes associated with esophageal squamous cell
cancer risk and their potential use to identify subjects at high risk
Version: 1Date:21 February 2011
Reviewer: YIH-GANG G GOAN
Reviewer's report:
This manuscript presented an interesting but not novel results regarding the
association between genetic polymorphism and esophageal neoplasm.
According to the results of this manuscript, there are several questions needed to
be clarified.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. The patient numbers of each group with esophageal lesion as well as normal
control were silmilar in this study. How can the authors select patient
prospectively and get equally distributed population groups? Are there inclusion
and exclusion criteria for patient selection?
2. In this study, the results revealed the genotype of ALDH significantly
associatee with the development of esophageal cancer. However, risk factors for
esophageal squamous cell carcinoma are varied geographically. Cigarette
smoking, alcohol consumption, culture of life and condition of foods are
well-known risk factors for esophageal cancers. Did the authors analyze the
interaction effect of alcohol consumption on the relationship between genotype of
ALDH and the stages of esophageal mucosal transformation?
3. How many patients with ALDH2*2 were none alcohol consumption and got
esophageal cancer? How many patients with ALDH 1*1 were heavy drinkers and
got esophageal cancers?
4. Socio-economic status might correlate with the incidence of esophageal
cancer. How the authors interpret their positive correlation between esophageal
mucosal transformation and school year as well as annual income using the
cut-off value of 6 years of school and 150 US. Dose it indicate that learning more
and earning more might reduce the risk of esophageal cancer?
Discretionary Revisions
1. The description about the location of Feicheng in discussion has any meanful
value to this manuscript?
Major Compulsory Revisions
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-74 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Multi-susceptibility genes associated with esophageal squamous cell
cancer risk and their potential use to identify subjects at high risk
Version: 1Date:22 March 2011
Reviewer: Elias Zintzaras
Reviewer's report:
For each variant, calculate the unadjusted and adjusted OR for the allele contrast
(only unadjusted), dominant, recessive, additive and co-dominant models (See
Zintzaras E, Lau J. Synthesis of genetic association studies for pertinent
gene-disease associations requires appropriate methodological and statistical
approaches. J Clin Epidemiol. 2008 Jul;61(7):634-45).
An additional analysis based on the generalized odds ratio (ORG) should be
performed (see Zintzaras E. The generalized odds ratio as a measure of genetic
risk effect in the analysis and meta-analysis of association studies. Stat Appl
Genet Mol Biol. 2010;9(1):Article21) The ORG utilizes the complete genotype
distribution and provides an estimate of the magnitude of the association
between disease status (disease vs. healthy or disease progression) and
genotype (biallelic or multiallelic). So, apply the ORG for each phenotype, and to
investigate disease progression.
Explain how the sample size was calculated, and determine the posterior power
of the study.
Omit the discriminant and ROC analysis.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-74 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Multi-susceptibility genes associated with the risk of the development
stages of esophageal squamous cell cancer in Feicheng County
Version: 2Date:9 April 2011
Reviewer: Elias Zintzaras
Reviewer's report:
The paper is acceptable for publication, but, the authors sould recalaculate the
sample size considering the disease prevelance, the observed minor allele
frequency, a moderate genetic risk effect (OR=1.2-1.3), P-value=0.05 and
1-b=0.80. Then, the posterior power may be calculated.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-74 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Multi-susceptibility genes associated with the risk of the development
stages of esophageal squamous cell cancer in Feicheng County
Version: 2Date:9 April 2011
Reviewer: Fumiaki Tanaka
Reviewer's report:
COMMENTS
The authors report in this manuscript that they examined that the association of
the ALDH2 and MTHFR polymorphisms is important in carcinogenesis of ESC in
Feicheng County, China.
The authors made some important changes following reviewers’ comments. This
manuscript contains potentially interesting facts that could be utilized for
understanding the mechanisms of the carcinogenesis of esophageal cancer in
Feicheng County, China. However, this reviewer need to raise concerns listed
below.
Major concerns:
1. As I mentioned in the previous review, conducting the analysis of
polymorphisms of toward carcinogenesis, the number of this study was too small
to obtain the conclusion. More than thousand patients and healthy controls would
be needed. This paper indicated just a sample of a county in China.
2. Page 14, the first paragraph, “This finding will be of great benefit to ~”. Which
country can pay for detecting ESC candidate in the world? This sentence needs
be deleted or changed.
3. Page 12, line 8-9, This sentence is wrong. Caucasians predominantly have
ALDH2*1.
Minor concerns:
1. Some words are not suitable for scientific manuscript. Page 4- line 11,
“excellent”, page 11-line 14, “that should be emphasized”, page 14-line 6, “great”
and so on,
2. Page 14, last paragraph, This paragraph has no informative information
regarding this article.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-74 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Multi-susceptibility genes associated with the risk of the development
stages of esophageal squamous cell cancer in Feicheng County
Version: 2Date:21 April 2011
Reviewer: YIH-GANG G GOAN
Reviewer's report:
Discretionary Revisions
The introduction about Feicheng County can be moved toward to the begining
part of discussion to highlight the validity of this study.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-71 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Sphere-forming cell subpopulations with cancer stem cell properties in
human hepatoma cell lines
Version: 1Date:13 January 2011
Reviewer: Malcolm Alison
Reviewer's report:
Overall: accept with minor modifications
This paper describes a study of sphere-forming cells in 3 malignant liver cell lines
although ultimately concentrating on just one. It?s quite straightforward and
generally well written but with some very obvious errors of language which could
be easily be corrected at the editorial level. These cells were far more clonogenic
and tumorigenic than the parental cells and enriched in so-called stem cell
markers ?
thus supporting the sphere assay as a way of identifying CSCs.
Tantalising evidence was presented for a role of Notch signalling in the
maintenance of sphere-forming cells; the paper would be greatly strengthened by
functional studies of knock-down of Notch components.
Minor points:
1. Throughout: replace ?spheroid cells? with either ?sphere-forming
cells? or ?sphere cells?
2. Fig. 2B: cell survival rate incorrect (a rate has units of time)
3. Page 10 ? in text, refer to Fig. 4A. Also, the Figure does not
support the statement that most cells express OV6.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-71 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Sphere-forming cell subpopulations with cancer stem cell properties in
human hepatoma cell lines
Version: 1Date:25 January 2011
Reviewer: Nicholas barker
Reviewer's report:
Cao et al:
This study evaluates the existence of cancer stem cells in human liver cancer
cell-lines using sphere-forming and in-vivo transplantation assays.
Cancer stem cells are undoubtedly a hot topic and formal demonstration of their
existence in liver cancer would have major therapeutic implications. However, the
findings of this study are preliminary, lack mechanistic insight and do not
represent a significant advance on those already published.
Comments:
1) The authors report that different cell-lines harbor sub-populations with
sphere-forming capabilities in-vitro. However, there is no attempt to compare the
efficacies of non-tumorigenic versus highly tumorigenic (eg, HepG2 vs
MHCC97H) cell-lines, or Hep+ versus Hep- in this assay. Such information is
crucial for drawing generally applicable conclusions.
2) Related to the above point, it is also important to directly compare the
sphere-forming and in-vivo tumorigenic efficacies of at least one other cell-line in
addition to PLC/PRF/5 and relate this to CSC activity/frequency.
3) The observations on resistance to chemotherapeutic agents should be
extended to include other common drugs with different mechanisms of action, eg,
doxyrubicin (ABC transporter blocker). Is there preferential survival of candidate
CSC markers in this assay (easily tested by IHC for CD133, CD13, CD44 etc)?
4) The correlation between increased tumorigenicity and enhanced expression of
candidate cancer stem cell markers in figure 4 is highly tentative. As a minimum,
the Western blots need to be accurately quantified. However, it would be far
more informative to demonstrate by IHC analysis that populations of cells
co-expressing markers such as CD133 and CD44 etc are enriched in the
spheres. CD13 should also be included here (See Haraguchi et al., JCI 2010
120:3326).
5) The link with aberrant activation of Notch signaling, although preliminary are
potentially interesting given the current interest in defining signaling pathways
linked to maintenance of CSC function in-vivo. This could easily by functionally
evaluated by blocking the Notch pathway in the sphere colonies with
commercially-available gamma-secretase inhibitors.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-71 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Sphered cell subpopulations with cancer stem cell properties in human
hepatoma cell lines
Version: 2Date:21 April 2011
Reviewer: Nicholas barker
Reviewer's report:
Minor Essential Revisions:
1) The inclusion of data demonstrating resistance to a range of therapeutic
agents certainly strengthens the manuscript. However, I still think important
mechanistic insight would be provided by a simple analysis of candidate CSC
marker expression in the spheres following treatment. Is there selection for CSC
phenotypes within the spheres following treatment, as has been suggested as a
contributing factor in tumor relapse in patients?
2) It is also surprising that no enrichment for CD133 was seen using IF in the
spheres, despite this being evidenced by Western blot in figure 4B. Does this
mean that CD133 isn't a good CSC marker? This should be discussed.
3) Please quantify the Western blots in Figure 5 - this is much easier for the
reader to interpret.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-71 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Sphered cell subpopulations with cancer stem cell properties in human
hepatoma cell lines
Version: 2Date:3 May 2011
Reviewer: Malcolm Alison
Reviewer's report:
Minor essential revisions.
The authors appear to have responded positively to the referees comments, in
particular using a gamma secretase inhibitor to further implicate the Notch
pathway and increasing the number of drugs tested to which the sphere-forming
cells were more resistant. There is still a big problem with the English language
throughout e.g. tenses, 'CSCs is regarded'; starting sentences with 'And... and
the use of 'Sphered cells' throughout including the title - replace 'sphered cells'
with 'sphere-forming cells'.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-73 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Gastronet survey on the use of one- or two-person technique for
colonoscopy insertion
Version: 1Date:20 March 2011
Reviewer: Giancarlo Spinzi
Reviewer's report:
This is an interesting and useful article because performance of one and
two-persons insertion techniques have not reported before. All that is unknown
must be resolved. I have some major questions:
- We do not know the withdrawal time from the cecum and this may be the cause
of the different polyp detection rate between the two groups.
- Polyps detection rate was better with one-person technique, but you explain
that all endoscopists practice one-person withdrawal technique. How can the
authors explain this difference?
- Survey may not be a real representation because patients of non respondents
reported more often moderate or severe pain and examinations performed by
non-respondents were more often with sedation (41% vs 27%). This may
represent a selection bias.
- The Authors stated that some endoscopists in the two-person group converted
occasionally to one-person technique and vice-versa during phases of insertion
problems. However, we do not konw for how long this was done so this could
modify the results.
One minor question:
- Patients' questionnaires were filled in at home on the day after examinations.
Why pain was not evaluated after colonscopy and before leaving the endoscopy
ward?
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-73 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Gastronet survey on the use of one- or two-person technique for
colonoscopy insertion
Version: 2Date:22 May 2011
Reviewer: Giancarlo Spinzi
Reviewer's report:
I find that the changes done have substantially ameliorate the article.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-70 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Discrimination of individuals in a general population at high-risk for
alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease based on liver stiffness
Version: 1Date:23 January 2011
Reviewer: Jing-Houng Wang
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript by Baba et al. analyzed the factors influencing liver stiffness (LS)
in a group of individuals for medical check-up routinely. They defined healthy
individuals and determined normal upper limit of LS as 6 kPa. For subjects with
LS>6kPa, higher proportion of subjects consume alcohol >20g/day. Higher LS
were also noted in individuals with fatty liver and abnormal liver function test. BMI
was the only factor for higher LS in multi-variate analysis. However, they
concluded LS could be used to monitor disease progression and discriminate
individuals at high risk of ALD and NAFLD.
1. Since this is a cross section study, it is improper to conclude LS could be used
in monitoring disease progression.
2. For LS in discriminating subjects in high risk of ALD and NAFLD, the validity of
LS should be provided.
3. From the result, the conclusion might be individuals attended routine medical
check-up with high BMI and abnormal liver function were at a high risk of higher
LS.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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.