Review History


All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.

Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.

View examples of open peer review.

Summary

  • The initial submission of this article was received on February 26th, 2025 and was peer-reviewed by 2 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The Academic Editor made their initial decision on June 10th, 2025.
  • The first revision was submitted on July 24th, 2025 and was reviewed by 1 reviewer and the Academic Editor.
  • The article was Accepted by the Academic Editor on August 24th, 2025.

Version 0.2 (accepted)

· Aug 24, 2025 · Academic Editor

Accept

All concerns of the reviewers were addressed and the revised manuscript is acceptable now.

[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Sonia Oliveira, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

-

Experimental design

-

Validity of the findings

-

Version 0.1 (original submission)

· Jun 10, 2025 · Academic Editor

Major Revisions

**PeerJ Staff Note:** Please ensure that all review, editorial, and staff comments are addressed in a response letter and that any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate.

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

needs to include and discuss more references that are related to the use of serum CXCL-8 for EC diagnosis. The manuscript contains several instances of overly complex or awkward phrasing. Some figure legends and table captions could be more descriptive and self-explanatory.

Experimental design

The manuscript should clarify whether multivariate analyses adjusted for potential confounders such as age, sex, and comorbidities.

Validity of the findings

The author claims novelty in the use of serum CXCL-8 for EC diagnosis, but recent studies have also explored this marker in both tissue and serum, as well as its role in prognosis and tumor progression (PMID: 32190161, PMID: 29285315, PMID: 36295640). They should clarify what is new about their approach

Annotated reviews are not available for download in order to protect the identity of reviewers who chose to remain anonymous.

Reviewer 2 ·

Basic reporting

This manuscript requires further polishing in English, and needs to include the rationale for selecting IL-8 as well as more elaboration on the latest research progress regarding esophageal cancer biomarkers in the background section.

Experimental design

What are the histological types of these esophageal cancer (EC) cases? Are they all squamous cell carcinomas (SCC), or do other subtypes exist? Additionally, do the outcomes differ between male and female EC patients? Could patient age influence the results? These factors necessitate stratified subgroup analyses. Furthermore, the current study relies on a single cohort; inclusion of additional independent cohorts for validation would significantly enhance the reliability of the findings.

Validity of the findings

NO

Additional comments

NO

All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.