Dear Dr. Shen,We sincerely thank you for your interest in our study, which was recently published in the Journal of Epidemiology.[1] First, we agree that, in the presence of non-proportional hazards, presenting an average hazard ratio (HR) over the entire follow-up period might not be informative because the magnitude of effect changes over time. However, a methodology report has shown that period-specific HRs (ie, HRs estimated in time-partitioned periods) may have built-in selection bias.[2] Therefore, instead of time-partitioned estimations, we presented a series of average HRs with increasingly longer follow-up time, with findings showing that the elevated risk of acute pancreatitis associated with pyogenic liver abscess steadily decreased over time and that the association persisted for 5 years (Table 2 of our paper).Second, we agree that the strength of interaction effects of pyogenic liver abscess and comorbidities on risk of acute pancreatitis (Table 3 of our paper) may differ among time-partitioned periods. If possible, we will analyze this effect for each time-partitioned period in further research.We appreciate your helpful comments.