The Landscape of Immunotherapy for Retroperitoneal Sarcoma

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A good and well organized review.

Author Response

We appreciate the comment from Reviewer 1. 

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a revelant and overall meaningful Review paper. I would suggest including an important recent publication on Sarcoma genetics and tumor mutational burden:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30453-x;    2. A recent study termed "IMMUNOSARC" (phase II on advanced Soft TissueSarcomas evaluating the combination of Sunitinib with Nivolumab) may also be worth mentioning.    3. It would also be worth mentioning an overall lack of Cell Based Immunotherapy trials for the specific sarcoma subtypes in which the review paper is focused.      

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for their careful attention to our manuscript and insightful comments. Their suggestions have been incorporated into the new draft, to include discussing the Sarcoma genetics paper, the Immunosarc trial and mentioning the lack of cell-based immunotherapy. We agree with the Reviewer that this provides a more complete context for the reader regarding the current state of immunotherapy in RPS. With these changes, we believe our manuscript is now suitable for publication. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors present a scoping review of our current understanding of immunotherapy as it relates to the treatment of retroperitoneal soft tissue sarcoma (RPS). As the authors highlight, RPS is an incredibly rare type of cancer for which surgical resection remains the only potentially curative treatment. Unfortunately, adjuvant therapies such as chemotherapy and radiation have been fraught with challenges in this space owing to poor responses to treatment, application universally to all sarcomas instead of by histology, and difficulty with running well designed trials given the rarity of the disease. Their article is extremely timely given scientific advances in the last 2 decades which have allowed us to dissect the biology of individual RPS histologies and better understand which subtypes may benefit from novel treatment strategies. Indeed, we desperately need unique treatment options for this group of patients as surgical resection is rarely curative. 

I do not have any major comments or criticisms. The review is broad in scope, well-written, easy to understand, detailed without being cumbersome, and provides the reader with an accurate image of where we stand today with respect to implementing immunotherapies for RPS. Any Oncologist with an interest in this space will enjoy the review and finish with a firm understanding of where the field is going. I would accept the article in its current form. 

Minor comments:

Typo on page 5 "DLPS" is likely meant to be "DDLPS"

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for their careful reading of our manuscript and appreciate their insightful comments. The typo on Page 5 has been addressed.