Reviewer ’s report  
 
Title: The disease stage -associated imbalance of Th1/Th2 and Th17/Treg in uterine cervical  
cancer patients and their recovery with the reduction of tumor burden  
 
Version: 2 Date: 17 Feb 2020  
 
Reviewer: Resear ch Square Reviewer 1  
 
Reviewer's report:  
 
PEER REVIEWER ASSESSMENTS:  
 
OBJECTIVE - Full research articles: is there a clear objective that addresses one or several 
testable research questions? (Brief or other article types: is there a clear objective?)  
Yes - there is a clear objective  
 
DESIGN - Is the current approach (including controls and analysis protocols) appropriate for the 
objective?  
Yes - the approach is appropriate  
 
EXECUTION - Are the experiments and analyses performed with sufficient technical rigor to 
allow confidence in the results?  
Yes - experiments and analyses were performed appropriately  
 
STATISTICS - Is the use of statistics in the manuscript appropriate?  
Yes - appropriate statistical analyses have been used in the study  
 
INTERPRETATION - Is the current interpretation/discussion of the results reasonable and not 
overstated?  
No - there are major issues  
 
OVERALL MANUSCRIPT POTENTIAL - Has the author addressed yo ur concerns sufficiently 
for you to now recommend the work as a technically sound contribution? If not, can further 
revisions be made to make the work technically sound?  
Maybe - with major revisions  
 
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS:  
 
GENERAL COMMENTS: Authors have  insufficiently addressed this reviewer's comments  
 
REQUESTED REVISIONS:  
The authors need to address point -by-point the reviewer 2 comments in the cover letter, not only 
in the manuscript.  
 
The major weakness of this study is the discussion section. Essen tially authors repeat results, the 
comparisons of their results still are poor, they only added two or three references on cervical 
cancer and most discussion dealing with their findings is done on "other" tumors. There are 
many studies on this topic. Just  to mention two and one revision:                                              
Correlation between subsets of tumor -infiltrating immune cells and risk stratification in patients 
with cervical cancer.  
Chen R, Gong Y, Zou D, Wang L, Yuan L, Zhou Q.  
PeerJ. 20 19 Oct 11;7:e7804. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7804. eCollection 2019.  
 
Highly immunosuppressive HLADRhi regulatory T cells are associated with unfavorable 
outcomes in cervical squamous cell carcinoma.  
Yang H, Ye S, Goswami S, Li T, Wu J, Cao C, Ma J, Lu B, Pei X, Chen Y, Yu J, Xu H, Qiu L, 
Afridi S, Xiang L, Zhang X.  
Int J Cancer. 2020 Apr 1;146(7):1993 -2006. doi: 10.1002/ijc.32782. Epub 2019 Nov 29.  
 
MOJ Immunol. 2018;6(2):34 -42. Epub 2018 Mar 16.  
Regulatory T Cells in Gynecologic Cancer.  
Ou Y1, Cannon MJ2, Nakagawa M1. I am adding a reference to a suggestion to write an 
effective discussion of papers. The paper is open access. Respir Care. 2004 Oct;49(10):1238 -41. 
How to write an effective discussion.  
Hess DR1.  
 
 
 
Are the methods appropriate and well described?  
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Does the work include the necessary controls?  
If not, please specify which controls are required in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the data shown?  
If not, please explain in your comments to the authors.  
 
No 
 
Are you able to assess any statistics in the manuscript or would you recommend an  
additional statistical review?  
If an addition al statistical review is recommended, please specify what aspects require further  
assessment in your comments to the editors.  
 
I am able to assess the statistics  
 
Quality of written English  
Please indicate the quality of language in the manuscript:  
 
Acceptable  
 
Declaration of competing interests  
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following questions:  
 
1. Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an  
organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this  
manuscript, either now or in the future?  
 
2. Do you hold any stocks or shares  in an organisation that may in any way gain or lose  
financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?  
 
3. Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the content of the  
manuscript?  
 
4. Have you recei ved reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that 
holds  or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?  
 
5. Do you have any other financial competing interests?  
 
6. Do you have any non -financial competing interests in relation to this paper?  
 
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing interests' 
below.  If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.  
 
This reviewer has been recru ited by a partner organization, Research Square. Reviewers with  
declared or apparent competing interests are not utilized for these reviews. This reviewer has  
agreed to publication of their comments online under a Creative Commons Attribution License  
attributed to Research Square and was paid a small honorarium for completing the review within 
a specified timeframe. Honoraria for reviews such as this are paid regardless of the reviewer  
recommendation.  
 
I agree to the open peer  review policy of the journal. I understand that my name will be included  
on my report to the authors and, if the manuscript is accepted for publication, my named report  
including any attachments I upload will be posted on the website along with the author s' 
responses. I agree for my report to be made available under an Open Access Creative Commons  
CC-BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ). I understand that any comments  
which I do not wish to be included in my named report can be included  as confidential comments  
to the editors, which will not be published.  
 
I agree to the open peer review policy of the journal