PONE-D-24-16551Long-term Survival Outcomes of Endoscopic Therapy vs. Surgical Resection in Patients with Cardia Gastrointestinal Stromal TumorPLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: The work presented is original and well structured. The statistical analysis was well documented and described in detail with supplementary tables. There is one aspect to review: authors should review the text paying attention to : punctuation, articles and maintaining the plural / singular agreement .

Reviewer #2: The study aimed to assess the long-term survival results among patients who received endoscopic therapy (ET) or surgical resection (SR) for cardia GIST. Data derived from Cardia GIST patients enrolled from 2000 to 2019 and selected from the surveillance, epidemiology, and end result (SEER) database. Multiple imputation (MI) was applied to handle missing data, and propensity score matching (PSM) was carried out to mitigate selection bias during comparisons. A total of 330 patients with cardia GIST were enrolled, including 47 (14.2%) patients with ET and 283 (85.8%) patients with SR. The 5-year OS and CSS rates in the ET and SR groups were comparable [before PSM, (OS) (76.1% vs. 81.2%, P=0.722), (CSS) (95.0% vs. 89.3%, P=0.186); after PSM, (OS) (75.4% vs. 85.4%, P=0.540), (CSS) (94.9% vs. 92.0%, P=0.099)]. Moreover, there was no significant difference between ET and SR in terms of long-term OS (hazard ratio [HR] 0.735, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.422-1.282) and CSS (HR 1.560, 95% CI 0.543-4.481). The study is of interest. The limitations were descripted. Even the sample is small the results are of interest for clinicians.

It would be beneficial to include "No at risk" on the survival curves.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Long-term Survival Outcomes of Endoscopic Therapy vs. Surgical Resection in Patients with Cardia Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor

PONE-D-24-16551R1

Dear Dr. Qiao

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Filomena de Nigris, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The rebbutal letter addressed reviewers comments so I decided to accept the manuscript for publication without any additional reviewers comments