Clinical and Molecular Features of Morpheaform Basal Cell Carcinoma: A Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper treats interestingly the morpheous BCC,

The molecular features are interestingly reported as well as the clinical features the main question addressed by the research was the morpheus BCC, the author analyzed well in my opinion this entity (5% of total BCC) evaluating clinical dermoscopic and molecular features. Although some literature exists in the field, it is important to be aware that this tumor differs form other BCC

It is a good summary of clinical evidences and advice about diagnosis and treatment. I think it is well written. And I think they responded well to the goal of their review and the references are appropriate.

Weakness: Some parts of the manuscript have a different caracter

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their kind words.

We have ensured that the entirety of the manuscript is in the same font.  

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript entitled “Clinical and Molecular Features of Morpheaform Basal Cell Carcinoma: A Systematic Review“ is very valuable manuscript which presents useful data on  morpheaform BCC (morBCC) (also known as sclerosing, fibrosing or morpheic BCC) which carry a poorer prognosis due to late presentation, local destruction, tumor recurrence, and higher metastasis. In their systematic review, the authors review the epidemiological, clinical, morphological, dermatoscopical, and molecular features of morBCC

However, there are some suggestions: 

-The table is very useful but too long, and it is difficult to follow details. So, it could be useful to add/include an additional small table which presents prominent study results and appropriated citing references. Thus, this short presentation could be welcome to present key findings in this topic to the readers and clinicians.

- Table 1: „Clinical features of morpheaform basal cell carcinomas“. - You may add that presented data are from various clinical studies and other literature (or similar text)

- Table 1: It would be also useful to divide “features” and “locations” into separate columns

-Also, cited  references should be written in one uniform style - e.g. the titles of references are sometimes by upper, sometimes by lower letters, and the titles of journals are differently mentioned.

However, I can comment on the text as a clinician and I think that it would be useful to check the obtained data by an expert from the field of molecular biology.

Author Response

The manuscript entitled “Clinical and Molecular Features of Morpheaform Basal Cell Carcinoma: A Systematic Review“ is very valuable manuscript which presents useful data on  morpheaform BCC (morBCC) (also known as sclerosing, fibrosing or morpheic BCC) which carry a poorer prognosis due to late presentation, local destruction, tumor recurrence, and higher metastasis. In their systematic review, the authors review the epidemiological, clinical, morphological, dermatoscopical, and molecular features of morBCC

Comment

1.However, there are some suggestions: 

The table is very useful but too long, and it is difficult to follow details. So, it could be useful to add/include an additional small table which presents prominent study results and appropriated citing references. Thus, this short presentation could be welcome to present key findings in this topic to the readers and clinicians.

reply:

Thank you for your suggestions.

We have added in a summary table that encapsulates the findings (Table 3). 

2.Table 1: „Clinical features of morpheaform basal cell carcinomas“. - You may add that presented data are from various clinical studies and other literature (or similar text)

reply:

We have added “from various clinical studies” to the title for Table 1. 

3.Table 1: It would be also useful to divide “features” and “locations” into separate columns

reply：

We thank the reviewer for their comment. We have divided these elements into two separate columns. 

4.Also, cited references should be written in one uniform style - e.g. the titles of references are sometimes by upper, sometimes by lower letters, and the titles of journals are differently mentioned.

reply：

We thank the reviewer for their comment. All citations were directly exported from databases (e.g. PubMed) and into Endnote for citation management. Thus, all titles are in their original form as submitted by their respective authors and journals. The same logic applies to journal titles. We have used the official citations for all studies. 

5.However, I can comment on the text as a clinician and I think that it would be useful to check the obtained data by an expert from the field of molecular biology.

reply：

While we believe that the input of a molecular biologist may be nice to have, given the timeline for resubmission imposed onto us by the editors this is not feasible. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Very interesting and well written article 

The bibliographic collection is very interesting I only have minor revisions 

1) The introduction can be expanded both in terms of percentage and treatments available that should be mentioned in their text, I suggest the authors revise the introduction by adding current references where these things I wrote are explained 

2) The table needs to be improved in form and construct

3) Add paragraph limitations of the study 

4) THERE are several typos in the text so check the whole text 

5) The style of the references should be adapted to the text 

Author Response

comment：

1.The introduction can be expanded both in terms of percentage and treatments available that should be mentioned in their text, I suggest the authors revise the introduction by adding current references where these things I wrote are explained 

reply：

We thank the reviewer for their input. We have added a passage about treatments for morBCCs to the introduction. However, the literature on the specific treatments for morBCCs is sparse. 

2.The table needs to be improved in form and construct

reply：

We have modified the table as per reviewer #1s request and included a summary table. If you have more specific requests, please let us know.

3.Add paragraph limitations of the study 

reply：

There is already a limitations paragraph included (just prior to the conclusion). 

4.THERE are several typos in the text so check the whole text 

reply：

We thank the reviewer for their observation. We have checked the entirety of the manuscript for typos. 

5.The style of the references should be adapted to the text 

reply：

We have modified the style of the references to be that of MDPI.