Letters To The Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2015; 21(13): 4101-4102
Published online Apr 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i13.4101
Lower folate levels in gastric cancer: Is it a cause or a result?
Ali Alkan, Dılşa Mızrak, Güngör Utkan
Ali Alkan, Dılşa Mızrak, Güngör Utkan, Medical Oncology, Ankara University School of Medicine, 06300 Ankara, Turkey
Ali Alkan, Medical Oncology, Ankara Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Hastanesi, Cebecihastanesi, Mamak Ankara, 06300 Ankara, Turkey
Author contributions: Alkan A, Mızrak D and Utkan G contributed equally to this work
Conflict-of-interest: All authors have no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ali Alkan, MD, Medical Oncology, Ankara Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Hastanesi, Cebecihastanesi, Mamak Ankara, Cebeci hastanesi, Mamak Ankara, 06300 Ankara, Turkey. alkanali@yahoo.com
Telephone: +90-312-5957321 Fax: +90-312-5957318
Received: September 5, 2014
Peer-review started: September 5, 2014
First decision: October 29, 2014
Revised: November 8, 2014
Accepted: December 14, 2014
Article in press: December 16, 2014
Published online: April 7, 2015
Processing time: 214 Days and 13.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The analysis by Lee et al in the paper has some limitations that must be pointed out. The severity of folate deficiency, replacement strategies, and probable vitamin B12 deficiencies should have been discussed. The paper does not do enough to accurately conclude a relationship between folate deficiency and gastric cancer severity.