Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1) Did the authors note any differences between intestinal type and diffuse type gastric cancer.

2) Are there differences in expression of CFL1 and TAGLN2 with regard to the 4 TCGA subtypes .

3) Are the authors able to correlate expression with early Stage T1a, T1b, T2 .

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors analyzed CFL1 and TAGLN2 mainly in serum of gastric cancer patients and different types of controls. CFL1 and TAGLN2 achieved ~80% sensitivity and >70% accuracy, distinguishing gastric cancer from controls. There have  many other factors in serum samples been described for differentiating gastric cancer from controls. In comparison this study was performed very thoroughly in the results are therefore sound and trustworthy and should be published. 

To make the manuscript more attractive for translational oncologists some typical immuno- histochemical or immunofluorescence microscopic figures to emphasize the results might be added.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The manuscript lacks a clear gap statement: What exactly is missing in current biomarkers beyond “low sensitivity”?

2. No clear description needed for Recruitment method  and Matching between cases and controls

3. Defined as TxN0M0, which is non-standard.

4. The formula is provided, but: Not clear which biomarker parameters were used, Not linked to primary outcome

5. Dilution factors differ (TAGLN2 1:100 vs CFL1 1:5) Please explain why such large differences exist, whether this affects comparability

6. Sensitivity ~80% and accuracy >70% are acceptable, but AUC values should be emphasized more consistently (currently only in figures)

7. Very small sample sizes in non-gastric cancers (e.g., breast cancer n=5) Only 5 GC cases detected .
8. Very low sensitivity for AFP/CEA (<10%) seems unusually poor. Reporting 100% specificity is statistically fragile.
9. AUC improves to 0.9453 Likely overfitting due to lack of validation
10.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Excellent revisions and attention to required questions. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

the authors covered my issues and improve the manuscript