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Reviews
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What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
This article examines the significant number of cancer survivors who present with insomnia.
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Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
Yes
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Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
Yes
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Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
Yes
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If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
No
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Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
Yes
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Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
No
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Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
Yes. This would be a great seminar for oncology residents.
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Other Comments:
The cancer survivors insomnia seems to be related to intrusive thoughts of fear of recurrence which impacts in his life due to fatigue and lack of energy. The author suggests an early treatment to ensure effective control and restore a normal life as soon as possible.
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Competing interests:
None
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Invited by the author to review this article? :
No -
Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
No
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References:
None -
Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
Clinical associate professor
- How to cite: Maloney W J.Insomnia Prevalence in Cancer Survivors[Review of the article 'Pilot Study of Insomnia Prevalence in Cancer Survivors ' by Alonso P].WebmedCentral 2013;4(4):WMCRW002663
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What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
To study prevalence of insomnia in cancer survivors.
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Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
Yes
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Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
No
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Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
Yes
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If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
No
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Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
No
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Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
There are few suggestions i would like to mention as below-
1) the sample size is small
2) the study time is only two months
3) author has not explained whether any of these patients underwent counselling
4) there is no mention of fear of death in any of the patients at all but only of recurrence
5) there is no mention of any co-morbid psychological distubances like depression
6) what preventive measures the author would like to take besides just awareness.
7) there is o mention on pre & post op/treatment psychiatric counselling of the patient which is most important.
8) how the author has ruled out any other causes is not clear
9) patients also have lot of burden due to cost of treatment which leads to insomnia, which is not mentioned at all
10) the discussion is very short, should be more elaborate.
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Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
No
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Other Comments:
No
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Competing interests:
None
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Invited by the author to review this article? :
No -
Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
No
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References:
None -
Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
As founder & in-charge of our cancer program i have to undertake pre & post treatment psychiatric counselling in all my cancer patients which improves the physical quality life index of these patients.
- How to cite: Belekar D M.Pilot Study of Insomnia Prevalence in Cancer Survivors[Review of the article 'Pilot Study of Insomnia Prevalence in Cancer Survivors ' by Alonso P].WebmedCentral 2013;4(3):WMCRW002659
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What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
The main claim of this paper is to point one aspect (or more) less studied in cancer survivors and ths is improtant in the follow u of this disease.
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Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
Thera are some papers on correlated subjects but it doesn`t ake off the imporance of this paper.
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Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
Yes
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Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
Despite being a small group ( even the author named it "pilot")I thnk that the resulst supported the claims
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If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
The author could have explained a little more the protocol to let it more clear but there were no important deviations from it
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Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
Yes
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Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
The author could have used all the information she had to improve the paper
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Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
The results are very important and he paper is outstanding because it points out on apect that is little discussed.
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Other Comments:
I would like to encourage the author to improve the work and to publish anything that can contribute to improve ou patients health.
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Competing interests:
None
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Invited by the author to review this article? :
No -
Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
No
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References:
None -
Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
My main work is on skin cancer
- How to cite: Bedin V .Pilot Study of Isomnia in Cancer Survivors[Review of the article 'Pilot Study of Insomnia Prevalence in Cancer Survivors ' by Alonso P].WebmedCentral 2013;4(3):WMCRW002654
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What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
This paper examines the prevalence of insomnia in cancer survivors. The lifestyle effects of cancer survival are often undocumented as a scientific subject so this paper represents a good step into relatively new territory. Had the sample size been larger, I think this article would have been suitable for publication in a higher journal.
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Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
Pilot reports into cancer survivor insomnia are not novel. There are already a few published works with similar sample sizes and claims in the literature. At the same time, I also recall some work has been done on depression prevalence in cancer survivors using larger sample sizes. References to both of these kinds of work should be included.
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Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
As mentioned above, there already are similar studies. These should be cited in the introduction and then examined in the conclusion section to see how they relate to the present work.
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Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
Yes, the data seem convincing despite the small sample size. I do think, however, that a table or two with more raw data would have been an appropriate counterpart to the text.
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If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
The language in the methods section was a little hard to follow. It was especially unclear how data was sampled. Were the patients given surveys? And if so, at what intervals. The text refers to a table that supposedly describes the parameters of the study but the table was difficult to follow, especially since it had no caption explaining the contents.
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Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
Since this paper is based on a simple, survey-based approach, I expect the methodology to be valid even though I did not understand the way it was described. Neverthless, the authors should edit the methods section for clarity so that this may be confirmed.
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Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
The largest problem with the study is sample size, even though the results seem rather definitive. The authors, however, do a good job of acknowledging this fact by refering to the study as a pilot so I see no issues as long as the methods, when editted, confirm to be sound.
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Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
This is a relatively new topic. So in that sense, I find the paper to be appropriate. I also find the weight of the language to be appropriate as well. The authors do not extend their reach too far in making the results sound like anything more than preliminary.
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Other Comments:
I found the overall brevity of the article much to my liking: only the essential information was included. With a little more background for other related papers, a clearer methods section, and some more tables with raw data, I think this is an appropriately pitched pilot study report. (Note that I would score this a 5 instead of a 4 with the above changes).
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Competing interests:
None
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Invited by the author to review this article? :
No -
Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
No
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References:
None -
Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
Cancer research using cell biology and biophysics.
- How to cite: Fendos J .A Bit Choppy at Times But on Its Way to Being a Good Pilot Report[Review of the article 'Pilot Study of Insomnia Prevalence in Cancer Survivors ' by Alonso P].WebmedCentral 2013;4(3):WMCRW002636
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With a small sample, the authors tried to know the prevalence of insomnia in cancer treated patients. It is a good intent since it is importtant to add more knowledge to this matter.
No. There are larger and more complete studies in the literature.
Minton O, Stone PC. A comparison of cognitive function, sleep and activity levels in disease-free breast cancer patients with or without cancer-related fatigue syndrome. BMJ Support Palliat Care. 2013;2:231-238.
Gray NM, et al. Developing a community-based intervention to improve quality of life in people with colorectal cancer: a complex intervention development study. BMJ Open 2013 Apr 11;3(4). pii: e002596.
Han KH, et al. Factors Associated With Depression in Disease-free Stomach Cancer Survivors. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2013 Mar 12. pii: S0885-3924(13)00023-7.
I recommend the authors read these studies and make a more complete study.
Yes are propertly placed but it is a very short study compared with previously published ones.
Yes this results support the claims. But evidencen presented is very poor compared with other studies.
No
Yes
The study is short in number of patients and in time.
It will be included in the chapter of psicological effects of cancer.
I recommed to the authors a serious study with more patients and more time of research.
None
No
No
No
I am an Oral and Maxillofacial Pathologist.