Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Prediction of distant metastatic recurrence by tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in hormone receptor-
positive breast cancer
Version: 
2 
Date: 
08 Feb 2021
Reviewer's report:
Many of the comments have not been adequately addressed by the authors, while others have not been
discussed. Therefore, I recommend the rejection of this manuscript. 
Please find a description of the points that have not been sufficiently addressed:
* The abstract is still not informative for the readers. 
* The conclusion of the abstract does not reflect the results obtained in this study. Indeed, the authors still
conclude that their findings regard the stages I-II of HR+/HER2- breast cancer; however, there are no
indications in the introduction, materials and methods, and the results of the abstract.
* In the materials and methods, there is no need to include all the patients that underwent surgery. Only the
inclusion criteria are necessary.
* In the background, the authors introduced the concept of quality of life, which is not strictly related with
the topic and it does not answer to the corresponding comment.
* The comments on the discussion of the results have not handled properly. The authors discuss the
literature but not the actual results obtained in this study.
* The low number of the patients included in this study has not been acknowledged as a limitation.
* The quality of the micrographs (i.e. figure 2) has not been improved.
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Declaration of competing interests
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following questions:
1
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applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?
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Do you have any other financial competing interests?
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reply is yes to any, please give details below.
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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?
2
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
1
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
1
Is the presentation of the work clear?
2
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free from apparent
manipulation?
1