Target Therapy in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: Hope or Mirage?
, Maria Garcia 4, Matteo Perrino 5, Nadia Cordua 5, Ryszard T. Smolenski 3, Godefridus J. Peters 2,3, Rafal Dziadziuszko 6, Armando Santoro 1,5, Paolo A. Zucali 1,5 and Elisa Giovannetti 2,7,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript "Target therapy in malignant pleural mesothelioma: hope or mi-2 rage?" is a review of the possible interventions to discover promising target therapy for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM). Various avenues like, growth factors, epigenetic modifications, etc. have been discussed.
In general, the manuscript has cited several recent works as well. The presentation seems to be appealing and interesting.
Author Response
We greatly appreciate the positive comment of this Reviewer.
Reviewer 2 Report
In this article the Authors review and evaluate the available targeted therapies in malignant pleural mesothelioma. They also present the candidate molecules for the potential new therapeutic targets in this rare type of cancer. This is a very well-written review article with a high cognitive and educational potential both for researchers and students. The figures are brilliant – I really appreciate a huge effort the Authors put into writing this article. I have only found some minor editorial issues:
- general remark: the list of abbreviations is necessary due to extremely high number of abbreviations used, sometimes the abbreviations are explained two times in the same paragraph, for example DCR on page 9: lines 339 and 342;
- page 1, line 21: change “pla tinum” to “platinum”;
- page 3, legend to Figure 1: “many beneficial features increasing their aggresiveness” – I found the word “beneficial” problematic in this meaning, I would even suggest to omit this word leaving this fragment as follows: “many features increasing their aggresiveness”;
- page 3, line 106: “2.1.1. VEGF” and all the subsequent titles with the abbreviations – I would rather use full names in the titles “2.1.1. Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor”, etc.;
- page 13, line 530: “is also” repeated two times – remove one repetition;
- page 15, line 601: change “The” to “the” (uppercase “T” to lowercase “t”).
Author Response
Reviewer#2
In this article the Authors review and evaluate the available targeted therapies in malignant pleural mesothelioma. They also present the candidate molecules for the potential new therapeutic targets in this rare type of cancer. This is a very well-written review article with a high cognitive and educational potential both for researchers and students. The figures are brilliant – I really appreciate a huge effort the Authors put into writing this article. I have only found some minor editorial issues:
Answer: We sincerely appreciate the positive comment of this Reviewer.
- general remark: the list of abbreviations is necessary due to extremely high number of abbreviations used, sometimes the abbreviations are explained two times in the same paragraph, for example DCR on page 9: lines 339 and 342;
Answer: We agree with the Reviewer. We added a list of abbreviations at the end of our paper. Moreover, we removed the repeated explanations of the abbreviations in the text.
- page 1, line 21: change “pla tinum” to “platinum”;
Answer: We thank the Reviewer for pointing that out. We corrected the word.
- page 3, legend to Figure 1: “many beneficial features increasing their aggresiveness” – I found the word “beneficial” problematic in this meaning, I would even suggest to omit this word leaving this fragment as follows: “many features increasing their aggresiveness”;
Answer: We agree with the Rewiever. We removed the word “ beneficial”.
- page 3, line 106: “2.1.1. VEGF” and all the subsequent titles with the abbreviations – I would rather use full names in the titles “2.1.1. Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor”, etc.;
Answer: We thank the Reviewer for this suggestion. We removed all the abbreviations in the titles and we used the full names.
- page 13, line 530: “is also” repeated two times – remove one repetition;
Answer: We thank the Reviewer for pointing it out. We removed the repetition.
- page 15, line 601: change “The” to “the” (uppercase “T” to lowercase “t”).
Answer: We thank the Reviewer for pointing it out. We changed this letter.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
