Letter regarding Wu JR et al.: S-1-based therapy versus S-1 monotherapy in advanced gastric cancer: a meta-analysis

suggest that the investigators provide us a clear search strategy. Secondly, the investigators clarified that “studies with less than 30 patients were excluded for the meta-analysis” .W e would like to know the possible reason for the exclusion criteria. Thirdly, the investigators made an AE meta-analysis comparing S-1-based therapy versus S-1 monotherapy as first-line treatment in advanced gastric cancer. However, we could not find the forest plots of the AE meta-analysis in the paper. We suggest that the investigators provide us all the forest plots. Finally, the investigators clarified that “the presence of publication bias was evaluated using Begg’s test and Egger’s test”. They also described that “no publication bias was detected byeither the funnel plot or Egger’stestinOS(P=0.707 and P=0.58), PFS (P=0.452 and P=1.51), and ORR (P= 0.452 and P=0.39). However, we cannot find the funnel plots in the paper. We suggest that the investigators provide us all these funnel plots. Thanks go to the investigators for their contribution in supplying us with an assessment of the prognostic significance of the S-1-based therapy over S-1 monotherapy in patients with AGC. However, larger studies and further clinical trials are still needed to confirm these findings. Conflict of interest None.