The Efficacy and Safety of Ultrasound-Guided Nerve Block in the Treatment of Cervical Spondylotic Radiculopathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Response to Letter

We thank the reader for identifying this critical error.After re-examining the raw data from the primary studies (Liu 2020 and Kose 2024), we confirm the following.For the Physical Component Summary (PCS), Liu 2020 reported an increase of +5.75 in the intervention group and +1.88 in the control group (mean difference MD = +3.87),while Kose 2024 reported an MD of +1.41; the pooled MD was +3.50 (95% CI 1.26-5.75).For the Mental Component Summary (MCS), Liu 2020 showed an increase of +4.18 in the intervention group and +1.83 in the control group (MD = +2.35),whereas Kose 2024 reported +5.71 in the intervention group and +7.37 in the control group (MD = -1.66); the pooled MD was +2.22 (95% CI 0.79-3.64).All mean differences were calculated as intervention minus control; therefore, a positive value correctly indicates greater improvement in the ultrasound-guided group than in the control group.The confusion arose because the x-axis labels in Figures 7 and8 were reversed: "Favors intervention" was placed on the left and "Favors control" on the right, causing the positive MDs to appear on the control side.Accordingly, we have revised the relevant text on pages 11-12 to clearly state that the intervention group showed significantly greater improvement in both PCS and MCS scores.All data have been rechecked and no further errors were identified.We confirm that the total of 1072 patients represents the final analytic sample after excluding 10 patients who were lost to follow-up or excluded for other reasons; the manual summation of sample sizes in Table 1 is consistent with this final number.We thank the reader for noting the inconsistency regarding the number of dropouts.The dropout number in the table should have been reported as 5 (as described in the footnote), rather than 3, which was a typographical error during table preparation and will be corrected.Regarding the study by Wang 2020,