{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02559912854030501, 'fraction_numerical': 0.005991285403050109, 'mean_word_length': 5.003267973856209, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Comment on: Meta‐analysis of the impact of progesterone receptor status on oncological outcomes in oestrogen receptor‐positive breast cancer

We read with great interest the article of Boland et al.1 The authors stated that progesterone receptor (PgR) negativity is associated with significant reductions in disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival in oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer. Nevertheless, some shortcomings need to be addressed. After reading this article carefully, the authors are to be praised for their research design. They developed a detailed retrieval strategy, and defined inclusion and exclusion criteria to enable comprehensive studies to be included in this meta-analysis. The authors included eight studies for meta-analysis using DFS as their primary endpoint. Of the eight articles included by the authors, the shortest follow-up was 3 years and the longest was 12⋅9 years. We think the follow-up time varies widely. Although meta-analysis results did not show significant heterogeneity, we still question the robustness of the results. We would like to know whether the authors defined DFS as 5 or 10 years. The authors point out that the average follow-up time is 10⋅8 years. Therefore, we suggest that the authors can use the average time as a critical point, divided into two groups based on the critical point of followup time, and perform subgroup analysis as strong evidence to prove the conclusion. We thank the authors for providing us with a meta-analysis to explore the impact of PgR status on oncological outcomes in ER+ breast cancer. We believe this has great significance for the clinical treatment and prevention of breast cancer. However, extensive sample studies are still needed to further explore the impact of PgR status on oncological outcomes in ER+ breast cancer.