Review for 10.1186/s12876-020-01487-6 (2020)

Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Frequency, prognosis and treatment modalities of newly diagnosed small
bowel cancer with liver metastases
Version: 
0 
Date: 
31 Aug 2020
Reviewer's report:
Small bowel cancer is a rare, but increasing tumour entitiy. The following study
is focusing on liver metastasis in a group of patients with small bowel cancer.
While this is an interesting and important field of research, I have a few
questions regarding this manuscript:
1) The english is of poor quality. many parts of the manuscript should be re-
written. Maybe a native speaker would increase the quality of the language. 
2) The data might be biases: 13009 patients were included in the database.
However, only 8861 (68%) were included in the study. From these, 1461 (11%
from all patients) had liver metastasis. Although the number seems to be high,
the subgroup is quite small. In Line 92/93 the authors state that patients with
unknown treatment were excluded. How many were these?
3) There are many different histological subtypes of small bowel cancer. It seems
not to be logical to pool all of them. 
4) How was the histology obtained? Not all patients received surgery. 
5) How was the diagnosis of liver metastasis made? CT? Ultrasound? This might
also be a diagnostic challenge in a subgroup of patients. 
6) The absolute numbers of patients with each tumour entity should be
mentioned in the manuscript text.
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Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
No
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
No
Is the presentation of the work clear?
No
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
No