JerMa88/BMC_Gastroenterology_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-105 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Comparative cost-efficiency of EVOTECH ECR versus Medivator DSD-201
in a real-world Canadian hospital endoscopy setting.
Version: 2Date:10 February 2011
Reviewer: Giancarlo Spinzi
Reviewer's report:
The questions posed by the Authors are well defined, the methods appropriate
and the data sound. I only regret that few endoscopes were reprocessed.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-105 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Comparative cost-efficiency of EVOTECH ECR versus Medivator DSD-201
in a real-world Canadian hospital endoscopy setting.
Version: 2Date:14 March 2011
Reviewer: Cesrae Hassan
Reviewer's report:
The Auhtors presented a microsimulation calculation of the cost of two different
approaches for endoscope reprocessing, that is: manual cleaning+automated
disinfection vs. cleaning automated+automated disinfection. The Authors showed
the important saving of human resources when avoiding the manual cleaning.
They also appropriately discussed the limitations of their interesting study in the
discussion.
My only major criticism is the study approach that is not in agreement with the
clinical expectations of this Journal readers. Indeed,it seems that the Authors
simply wanted to show the superiority of one machine over the other, that is an
industrial competition that is of no sense for clinician readers. therefore, the
Authors need to re-write the manuscript clarifying that the primary end-point was
to compare the cost of two different approaches of reprocessing, citing only
marginally and no more than 2-3 times in all the manuscript which machines
were used to run this comparison. Probably, the analysis could be limited to the
saving in technician time without providing further details on the cost of
consumables. the latter is again more an industrial competition rather than a
clinical message.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-105 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Comparative cost-efficiency of the EVOTECH Endoscope Cleaner and
Reprocessor versus manual cleaning plus automated endoscope reprocessing in
a real-world Canadian hospital endoscopy setting.
Version: 3Date:25 May 2011
Reviewer: Cesrae Hassan
Reviewer's report:
Please accept it as it is.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-105 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Comparative cost-efficiency of the EVOTECH Endoscope Cleaner and
Reprocessor versus manual cleaning plus automated endoscope reprocessing in
a real-world Canadian hospital endoscopy setting.
Version: 3Date:26 May 2011
Reviewer: Michelle Alfa
Reviewer's report:
I have read the revised manuscript and the response to reviewers comments
provided by the authors. I am satisfied that all my concerns have been addressed
and recommend publication of the revised version of the manuscript.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
Competing interests are the same as in the original review.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-105 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Comparative cost-efficiency of the EVOTECH Endoscope Cleaner and
Reprocessor versus manual cleaning plus automated endoscope reprocessing in
a real-world Canadian hospital endoscopy setting.
Version: 4Date:27 July 2011
Reviewer: Lawrence Muscarella
Reviewer's report:
July 27, 2011 (3rd review):
I. Discretionary revisions:
1. It is reasonable to request that the authors discuss and clarify for the reader
whenever an implication or consequence of this manuscript’s results and
conclusions in Canada does not similarly apply in the U.S.
II. Major compulsory revisions:
1. Although the manuscript addresses the Canadian marketplace, not the U.S.’s,
this reviewer remains confused by the failure of this manuscript to include in such
a cost comparison of two reprocessing devices an estimate of the initial
acquisition prices of the EVOTECH ECR and Medivators DSD-201. This reviewer
recommends adding a footnote to Table 7, like its other footnote, to clarify for the
reader that this table does not include the initial acquisition price of either device.
Otherwise, Table 7’s title – “Total per cycle and annual costs of labour plus
consumables” – might be confusing.
Inclusion in the manuscript of this type of a footnote is important to ensure that
this manuscript’s results do not feature a measurement bias that might skew its
conclusions in favor of the EVOTECH ECR in comparison to the Medivators
DSD-201. (Indeed, one of the manuscript’s authors is employed by Johnson and
Johnson Medical Companies, a division of which manufactures and markets this
Evotech device.)
III. Closing comments:
1. The revisions by the authors through this review process are appreciated and
have contributed significantly to this manuscript’s improvement.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I am employed by a U.S. manufacturer of automated endoscope reprocessing
devices, such as the Evotech ECR and the Medivators DSD-201.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-104 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Family history of cancer on survival of patients with gastrointestinal cancer
in northern Iran, using frailty models
Version: 1Date:19 January 2011
Reviewer: Hans C. van Houwelingen
Reviewer's report:
The data could be of interest and worth publishing; however the data-analysis is
far from satisfying.
Issues to be addressed:
Major
1. Kaplan-Meier estimates of the survival function should be shown, to visualize
the data and the effect of important predictors, like gender and family history.
2. The p-values of Table I, compare males and females, I presume. That is not
very interesting. I rather had seen the p-values of the log-rank test and hazard
ratios derived from simple Cox models for each covariate separately.
3. It does not make sense to compare the partial likelihood of a Cox model with
the full likelihood of parametric models. Concluding that the Cox model behaves
poorly on the basis of Table II is not correct
4. Table III is a bit incomprehensible. First of all, I would rather omit all predictors
who do not seem to have an effect at all. Secondly, I expect more than one
parameter for categorical covariates with more than two categories like Type and
Ethnicity. Thirdly, I have never seen the standardized variability as used here. It
is just 1/Z^2, where Z=Wald statistic, I presume. You might as well give the
p-values.
5. Adding a gamma-frailty term improves the likelihood. That is fine. However,
that should be interpreted with care. It shows that the simple model can be
improved. Similar improvements could be obtained by adding time-varying
effects in the Cox model, as already proposed by Cox in his original paper. The
existence of “heterogeneity” can only be concluded if you firmly believe that true
model is a simple linear model.
Minor
1. Since all your models have the same number of covariates, you do not need
AIC. You can just compare the log-likelihoods.
2. I do not quite see the usefulness of the deviance residuals plots. They tell the
same story as the likelihoods. If you want to give them, they would need some
explanation for the clinical readers.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-104 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Family history of cancer on survival of patients with gastrointestinal cancer
in northern Iran, using frailty models
Version: 1Date:1 March 2011
Reviewer: Sandrine Katsahian
Reviewer's report:
1- Some statistical definition and formula are not given : Major Compulsory
Revisions
2- Bibliography and iconography could be better presented: Major Compulsory
Revisions
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-104 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Family history of cancer on survival of patients with gastrointestinal cancer
in northern Iran, using frailty models
Version: 2Date:12 April 2011
Reviewer: Tron Anders Moger
Reviewer's report:
I think that the arguments for using parametric models are clearer now, as it is
established that the assumption of proportional hazards is violated in the Cox
model. This information was missing in the original manuscript. I do not see any
obvious methodological errors in the revised manuscript. I have a couple of
suggestions, though:
1. Table III is very large. You have established that the log-logistic model with
gamma frailty provides the best fit to the data. Why not present the regression
results for this model only in table III, instead of still using space on the
exponential, Weibull and lognormal models?
2. The legend for figures I and II has been improved in the revised manuscript.
However, the legend for Figure II is now very long, and some of it might be
moved to the text e.g. in the second paragraph on p. 7. Also, I expect that all
figures in Figure II show the residual for models with gamma frailty? This is not
clear from the figure legend.
Some sentences still need re-phrasing. For example, I do not understand what
the authors are trying to say in the following two sentences (p. 9, last paragraph):
These models are relatively new in survival and widely studied in the 1990's and
now the subject of many investigations has been allocated. Technical problems
in estimating the parameters have been caused the Cox model to be used less.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-104 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Family history of cancer on survival of patients with gastrointestinal cancer
in northern Iran, using frailty models
Version: 2Date:25 April 2011
Reviewer: Hans C. van Houwelingen
Reviewer's report:
The paper has much improved , but I am not fully satisfied yet.
Major.
1. The survival graphs shown in the response to my previous review should be
included in the paper, because they are clinically much more relevant than all the
residual plots.
2. The paper is biased against the Cox model. The violation of the PH
assumption might be there, but there are similar assumption underlying the other
models that are note tested. Adding a frailty term could remedy the violation of
the PH assumption. Moreover, the baseline hazard of the Cox model would show
a similar humor in the hazard, I presume.
3. The paper is biased in favor of frailty models. Parameter estimates in frailty
models are hard to interpret because they condition on the unobservable frailty.
The effects on marginal survival matter and not those on the conditional survival
given the frailty.
The issues 2. and 3. do not require additional analysis, but they would require
some changes in the text to correct the biased pesrpectives.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-104 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Family history of the cancer on the survival of the patients with
gastrointestinal cancer in northern Iran, using frailty models
Version: 4Date:27 July 2011
Reviewer: Tron Anders Moger
Reviewer's report:
I have no further comments to the article.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-104 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Family history of the cancer on the survival of the patients with
gastrointestinal cancer in northern Iran, using frailty models
Version: 4Date:29 July 2011
Reviewer: Hans C. van Houwelingen
Reviewer's report:
I am pleased that the Kaplan-Meiers have been added. I have no further
comments.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-103 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Two cases of monomicrobial intrabdominal abscesses due to KPC- 3
Klebsiella pneumoniae ST258 clone
Version: 2Date:21 June 2011
Reviewer: Nobuyuki Toshikuni
Reviewer's report:
This manuscript describes two cases of intraabdominal abscesses. The results of
genetic analysis of the pathogenic bacteria are intriguing. The authors highlight
that microbiological diagnosis and a therapeutic approach using new and old
antibiotics combined with radiological intervention are useful in the management
of the serious disease. However, this seems a rather common strategy for
controlling bacterial abscesses. The reviewer expects new perspectives in
diagnostic or therapeutic approaches in the field.
Please correct the misspelled word, “Intrabdominal”.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-103 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Two cases of monomicrobial intrabdominal abscesses due to KPC- 3
Klebsiella pneumoniae ST258 clone
Version: 2Date:24 June 2011
Reviewer: Maria Souli
Reviewer's report:
This is a case report describing 2 similar cases of intra-abdominal abscess due
to KPC-3 producing K.pneumoniae. The clinical presentation, diagnostic
evaluation and management of these cases were straightforward. Nevertheless,
the etiologic agent was an emerging pathogen, a carbapenemase producing
K.pneumoniae. In some geographical areas where KPC producers are prevalent
these cases would have been very commonly encountered but in areas where
these pathogens are still rare, these cases would have been unexpected and
worthing publication and underline the need for a microbiological diagnosis.
Minor Essential Revisions
The authors should clarify that the combination regimen used was arbitrary since
there are no clinical studies suggesting that colistin and tigecycline combination
has superior in vivo activity as compared to either agent alone nor they have
confirmed a failure of monotherapy in their patients.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-103 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Two cases of monomicrobial intrabdominal abscesses due to KPC- 3
Klebsiella pneumoniae ST258 clone
Version: 2Date:28 June 2011
Reviewer: Long-Bin Jeng
Reviewer's report:
1.Major Compulsory Revisions
-Nil
2.Minor Essential Revision
-Key word on abstract: Klebsiella pneumonia(e)
-Case 2, paragraph 4, …tygecicline (tigecycline) was started
…tygecicline (tigecycline) treatment
-Discussion, paragraph 3,…tigecycline (the first representative of the new class
of glycylcyclines) has (had) recently gained
3.Discretionary Revisions
-Case 2, the dose of colistin and tigecycline used
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests' below.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-103 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Two cases of monomicrobial intrabdominal abscesses due to KPC- 3
Klebsiella pneumoniae ST258 clone
Version: 4Date:18 August 2011
Reviewer: Wen-Liang Yu
Reviewer's report:
the authors have answered my questions, but it seems that they add to many
materials and too many references, as a case report, it seems not necessary to
do so.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-102 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Social disparities in the use of colonoscopy by primary care physicians in
Ontario
Version: 5Date:24 December 2010
Reviewer: Gianluca L Bersani
Reviewer's report:
I read with interest this manuscript on social disparity in the use of colonoscopy. I
have some minor questions and comments.
1. More discussion is needed about the assumption that a discretionary
colonoscopy is defined as a colonoscopy procedure performed on a patient of
screening eligible age, not associated with diagnosis of CRC at the time of
colonoscopy or within a 3 year period following the colonoscopy
2. Some comments is reccomended about trasferability of the study results to
other countries
3. Fig 2 it’s a little messy, and it can be reduced, reporting only characteristics
with significant differences between the groups.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-102 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Social disparities in the use of colonoscopy by primary care physicians in
Ontario
Version: 7Date:10 February 2011
Reviewer: Geoff M Forbes
Reviewer's report:
-
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-102 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Social disparities in the use of colonoscopy by primary care physicians in
Ontario
Version: 9Date:3 May 2011
Reviewer: Carl J Lombard
Reviewer's report:
Patient neighbourhood information.
The calculation of the neighbourhood-level variables for a PCP raises some
concern. The description of the percentage of patients who reside in the Q!
neighbourhood seems fine since this percentage pertains the number of PCP
eligible patients. For the other variables the infomration (ie percentage of
population age 20 years and older) from the neighbourhood is linked to the PCP
patient and then aggregated to define and average charateristic. This is done in a
crude fashion.
Example: Two patients linked to two neighourhoods: patient 1 linked to area with
80% (800/1000) older then 20 years and patient 2 linked to an area with 50%
(1500/3000) over the age of twenty. For your study you use the average of 80%
and 50% and get a value of 65%. Taking the size of the areas into account one
gets a value of 100*2300/4000=57.5%. Why was the crude aggregation
considered adequate?
Outcome model.
In the statistical analysis it is stated that discretionaty colonoscopies are
modelled but in the results and description linked to Table 4 this is not so.
Assummed the later to be the case given the comment on discretionary col. in
the limitations.
Statistical model Table 4
In the statistical analysis section it is stated that due to a high degree of
collinearity the following variables were excluded: age of PCP, rurla location of
PCP practice and proportion of visible minorities. In the model we have the
ecological level variables % of lives(?) in rural location and % of non-immigrants.
It seems that the last variable is the proportion of visible minorities that was to be
excluded and that % if life in rural location has not been described earlier. The
description in the text and the final model should be clear to eliminate any
confusion of what is in and what is out.
It is stated that interactions was considered with time in the final model but these
results are not presented. The time effect which is the main factor for the paper
should also be presented as well as the time dependent associations. Will be a
bit of a challenge to do this in a nice way.
Table 3
This information should also be converted into graphs
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
declare that I have no competing interests'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-102 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Social disparities in the use of colonoscopy by primary care physicians in
Ontario
Version: 11Date:1 August 2011
Reviewer: Carl J Lombard
Reviewer's report:
The description of the ecological variables have been improved and this has
solved the understanding of the multiple regression model.
Some small comments on the multiple regression model.
1. the covariates have been categorised for ease of interpretation such as for
example median age of practice characteristic. The categories seems odd and
arbitrary. For median age for example we have 3 categories 50-59, 60-61, >=62
years. Why was this categorisation used especially a 10 year interval followed by
a 2 year interval followed by and open interval which should actually be 62-74.
Given this categorisation the rr for the less orlder age categories are .96 and .97
respectively. Are they really significantly different? This should be tested if you
are sticking to this categorisation.
This comment also holds for other coavariates such as % low income ( difference
between ,10,10-19?) % of life in rural location (please note that you are using
'lives': significant difference between <1 and 1-3?), %of labour force (<65 versus
65-69 - significantly different?)
2. For co-variates with more than two categories the p-values provided do not
reflect the overal significance of the variable - this overal p-values have not been
provided andit may be stated in the text that all such covariates in the model
were signficant.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-101 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Determinants of Polyp Size in Patients Undergoing Screening Colonoscopy
Version: 1Date:8 August 2011
Reviewer: Brooks Cash
Reviewer's report:
This is an interesting report that identifies several factors that appear to be
related to larger polyp size, including race, age, site of colonoscopy, multiplicity.
Major compulsory revisions
There is a misspelling in the abstract (form should be from).
Minor essential revisions
None
Discretionary revisions
The discussion of longitudinal history of polyps is a little out of place here since
this data originates from a single point in time for each patient. The authors may
want to discuss other studies that have evaluated risk factors associated with
polyp size to put the results of this trial in greater clinical perspective.
Please address hypotheses to explain why private practice patients tend to have
larger polyps?
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-100 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Narrow-band imaging does not improve detection of colorectal polyps
when compared to conventional colonoscopy: a randomized controlled trial and
meta-analysis of published studies.
Version: 3Date:15 July 2010
Reviewer: Han-Mo Mo Chiu
Reviewer's report:
This study aim to compare the efficacy of conventional colonoscopy and NBI in
terms of adenoma detection rate and total number of polyp/adenoma detected.
Here are my review comments:
Major
1. It is curious for me why the author report the result of RCT and meta-analysis
in the same study though it is not unacceptable. Moreover, the results of
meta-analysis is not very different from that by van den Broek that published in
GIE previously therefore the author can explain the specific purpose of adding
this part in their work or conducting this meta-analysis. (for example, newly
published well-designed studies were included in this analysis, etc.. )
2. The methodology was well conducted and generally acceptable in terms of
study design and statistics. The only point that the author should clarify is
whether they use chromoendoscopy (ie. Indigocarmine dye-spraying) or not
during the process of conventional colonoscopy observation because this may
partially increase the possibility of detecting more lesions
3. Regarding the discussion, the author can further discuss some important
issues in depth. For example: 1) the darkness of current NBI system may
counteract its advantage for detecting neoplasms and thus new technology (or
new generation NBI) is anticipated, 2) impact of colon preparation on this study
and also on other reviewed studies, 3) flat or non-polypoid type neoplasm issues,
4) impact of different endoscopic system: some of the reviewed studies was
conducted using Lucera whereas some with Exera endoscopic system. This may
also impact on the diversity of results that observed in different studies.
4. In the discussion section, the author should also highlight what they add to the
already known knowledge in this field by this study.
Minor
1. Adler was misspelled as Addler in the tables and figures. Please correct.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-100 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Narrow-band imaging does not improve detection of colorectal polyps
when compared to conventional colonoscopy: a randomized controlled trial and
meta-analysis of published studies.
Version: 4Date:11 November 2010
Reviewer: Han-Mo Mo Chiu
Reviewer's report:
The author have made amendments according to my previous review comments.
Here are the remaining minor essential revisions required:
1. In ABSTRACT page, result section: the lower confidence limit of 95% CI of
mean number of polyps and mean number of adenoma were not expressed
completely. Please add.
2. Regarding different endoscopic system applied in previous study, the author
can describe more specifically: LUCRA vs. EXCERA. The author can refer to
Uraoka et al. Impact of narrow-band imaging in screening colonoscopy Digestive
Endoscopy 2010 Jul;22 Suppl 1:S54-6. in which this issue has been well
described and reviewed.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-100 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Narrow-band imaging does not improve detection of colorectal polyps
when compared to conventional colonoscopy: a randomized controlled trial and
meta-analysis of published studies.
Version: 4Date:10 February 2011
Reviewer: Mainor R Antillon
Reviewer's report:
I am having problem understanding the actual polyp/adenoma detection rates
Page 10 paragraph 3 the author report an overall polyp detection of 36.1 % but in
page 12, last sentence reports 37%. Which one is it?
Page 10, paragraph 3 needs to be revised and the numbers/percentages need to
match.
53.1 %, 36.8% and 6.89 % do not make 100%.
What were the withdrawal times in page 13. There is plenty of evidence that
withdrawal times as a surrogate correlated to adenoma detection rates.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I am a consultant for Olympus America
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-100 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Narrow-band imaging does not improve detection of colorectal polyps
when compared to conventional colonoscopy: a randomized controlled trial and
meta-analysis of published studies.
Version: 5Date:30 March 2011
Reviewer: Mainor R Antillon
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript continues to be difficult to follow and understand.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I am a consultant for Olympus America and Boston Scientific.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-100 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Narrow-band imaging does not improve detection of colorectal polyps
when compared to conventional colonoscopy: a randomized controlled trial and
meta-analysis of published studies.
Version: 5Date:9 September 2011
Reviewer: Toshifumi Hibi
Reviewer's report:
(Major)
Although some studies have shown an improvement in the adenoma detection
rate with NBI compared with conventional colonoscopy, there have been studies
in which the benefits of either technique were not statistically significant in
detection rates between the two groups. The authors’ RCT does neither add
much new evidences nor originality to our present knowledge, and their data,
including the figure shown in Table 3, is confusing, as reviewer2 pointed. But
their meta-analysis has some clinical importance and reviewer2 does not seem
to have any objection for it. Additionally, the authors have almost responded to
the major compulsory revisions given by two reviewers. I think the latter portion
of their paper(meta-analysis) is , at least, acceptable.
(Minor)
The total examination time (about 9 min) seems to be too short.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-99 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Giant pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma with hemangioma mimicking
intestinal obstruction: A rare case
Version: 1Date:22 April 2011
Reviewer: Dimitris Korkolis
Reviewer's report:
This is a well-written, well-documented and with satisfying English language
support case report of a giant pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma with
hemangioma features causing acute intestinal obstruction. As a clinical entity,
this is a rare case and unsual presentation of HCC. Due to its minor vascular
invasion, aggressive surgical management should always be advised, as shown
in the manuscript, as the sole way of long lasting disease-free survival.
The paper depicts this clinical report in a simple but detailed way adding to its
teaching significance. Accompanied pictures are well prepared and fairly
educational. In view of the above, I believe that authors performed a nice job and
their manuscript should be published.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-99 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Giant pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma with hemangioma mimicking
intestinal obstruction: A rare case
Version: 1Date:28 May 2011
Reviewer: Hiroko Kuwabara
Reviewer's report:
The authors describe a P-HCC combined with a cavernous hemangioma with
features of intestinal obstruction.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1.The proportion of HCC areas to hemangioma ones within the tumor should be
presented, and a figure including both histological areas is needed.
2.CT and MRI didn't show any HCC findings?
3.What kind of tumors are combined with p-HCC in previous reports? This should
be discussed.
4.The patient was followed up for hemochromatosis. The histological statement
of non-cancer lesion should be presented. Are cirrhosis and iron deposition
present?
Minor Revisions
1.HBV and HCV related tests in the serum should be presented.
2.The position of Figure 4 in the Case Presentation is not correct.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-99 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Giant pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma with hemangioma mimicking
intestinal obstruction: A rare case
Version: 1Date:31 May 2011
Reviewer: maolin yan
Reviewer's report:
The authors do not show the hemangioma and the features of intestinal
obstruction in figure1A,B,C, which was the most important characteristics for this
case. The order in figure2 should be C#B#A.
It is for these reasons that the reviewer thinks that this case report is not worth
publishing in BMC Gastroenterology.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-99 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Giant pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma with hemangioma mimicking
intestinal obstruction: A rare case
Version: 1Date:29 June 2011
Reviewer: Katsutoshi Sugimoto
Reviewer's report:
Comments to the Authors:
GENERAL COMMENT
This case report is about a pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma, which is
relatively rare type of HCC. Previously, we experienced a case of pedunculated
hepatocellular carcinoma (p-HCC) (unpublished case). Base of the experience,
we sate below.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. Some case reports showed that, compared with conventional HCC, p-HCC is
arises from normal liver. Our experienced case was also normal liver. However,
in this case, this patient had a history idiopathic hemochromatosis. Thus you
should describe that a causal association between P-HCC and idiopathic
hemochromatosis in discussion section.
2. Many studies showed that findings on unenhanced T2-weighted MR image
play a key role in differentiation of hemangioma and other heptic tumors.
Considering T2-weighted MR image in this case, the tumor have a low potential
for hemangioma. You should consider the imaging findings further in discussion
section.
Discretionary Revisions
In this case, unfortunately, dynamic study was not performed due to a several
allergic reaction to radio-opaque medium. We think that contrast-enhanced
ultrasound may be useful in the diagnosis of HCC.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-99 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Giant pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma with hemangioma mimicking
intestinal obstruction
Version: 2Date:8 August 2011
Reviewer: Hiroko Kuwabara
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory revisions
The manuscript is well revised.
Minor essential revisions
1.In legends to figure 4, “H&E counterstain” should be changed to “H&E stain”.
2.In figure 4A, two arrows are seen. One should be an arrowhead (HCC).
3.In reference 7, journal name is absent.
4.In reference 14, “Cancer letters” should be changed to “Cancer Letters”.
Reviewer: Hiroko Kuwabara
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-99 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Giant pedunculated hepatocellular carcinoma with hemangioma mimicking
intestinal obstruction
Version: 2Date:8 August 2011
Reviewer: Katsutoshi Sugimoto
Reviewer's report:
Nothing special
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-98 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Dumping syndrome following Nissen fundoplication in an adult patient
diagnosed By BreathID continuous online 13C-octanoide acid breath test a case
report.
Version: 1Date:7 March 2010
Reviewer: Roger Ackroyd
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory revisions:
1. The title of the article needs revising. It need a hyphen of colon before "a case
report".
Minor essential revisions:
There are NUMEROUS spelling and typographical mistakes.
1. Fundoplication is consistently mis-spelt. In the abstract it is spelt
"funduplication" a total of 4 times.
2. In the first paragraph, the word "specially" should read "especially".
3. in the second paragraph, line 1, the word "which" should read "who".
4. In the "Background" section, 4th paragraph, line 2, the words nissen
fundoplication do not need capital letters.
5. In the "Case presentation" section, 2nd paragraph the term EG junction is
used. This has not been previously defined and should not be abbreviated like
this here.
6. In the "Case presentation" paragraph 5, line 1, the word "a" needs adding
before "small gastric erosion".
7. In paragraph 7 of the same section, the word "removed" should be replaced by
"divided" when speaking about the adhesions.
8. In the "Consent" section, it talks about "Consent forms signed by the patient is
submitted separately". This sentence makes no sense. Is it singular or plural?
Also ther is no full stop.
9. In the "Discussion" section, paragraph 4, sentence 1 makes no sense. The
English here is very poor and this sentence needs re-writing.
10. In the "Conclusion" section, the sentence beginning "The Breath" also makes
no sense. The English is again poor and it needs re-writing.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that i have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-98 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Dumping syndrome following Nissen fundoplication in an adult patient
diagnosed By BreathID continuous online 13C-octanoide acid breath test a case
report.
Version: 1Date:8 March 2010
Reviewer: Masaki Sanaka
Reviewer's report:
The 13C-octanoic acid breath test is currently in widespread use for
non-invasively evaluating gastric emptying of solid meals, although its utility in
clinical practices remains controversial. The present case report is valuable in
that it shows the clinical utility of the breath test. However, this article needs
extensive revision.
Major:
1. The Discussion section, in general, looks like a mini-review of the dumping
syndrome, and is therefore inappropriate. You should discuss how the breath test
is useful in diagnosis of the dumping syndrome. Do you think that the dumping
syndrome can be confirmed by the 13C breath test in patients with typical
symptoms even if an oral glucose challenge test is omitted?
2. You should describe the type of the test meal used and its caloric value,
because they highly affect the results of gastric emptying breath tests.
3. You should describe more in detail how you made a diagnosis of dumping
syndrome by the breath test. If you made the diagnosis based on the
conventional parameters (Tlag, T1/2, and GEC), you should present the
reference values of the parameters in your own institute. If you did based on the
shape of the breath PDR curve depicted in the Figure, you should clearly state
that the steep up-slope of the curve in the early postprandial phase represents
the initial rapid delivery of nutrients to the small intestine that would cause
dumping symptoms.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-98 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Dumping syndrome following Nissen fundoplication in an adult patient
diagnosed By BreathID continuous online 13C-octanoide acid breath test a case
report.
Version: 1Date:9 March 2010
Reviewer: Simon Eaton
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
(i) we are given no details about how the test was performed. What was the dose
of 13-C-octanoic acid? Was it delivered in orange juice, another liquid vehicle, or
a solid test meal? What volume was administered, and over how long a time
period? Where was the sampling cannula?
(ii) it is very unclear how the diagnosis of dumping syndrome was reached on the
basis of the displayed plot. We need to know what is the normal range for t1/2.
The plot is also very unclear and should be re-drawn using the data points and a
computer graphics package.
(iii) Breath-ID is an established methodology which has been referred to in
several papers and so should not be referenced in the title of the article.
(iv) dumping syndrome is usually diagnosed by barium meal or by scintigraphy.
The authors need to explain why they believe that the patient had dumping
syndrome, when the barium meal was negative. Was scintigraphy performed?
When evaluating a new test, it is usual to compare against the gold standard.
(v) biphasic gastric empyting, which is what I believe the graph shows, has often
been referred to in the literature, and the authors need to perform a more
thorough literature search.
(vi) I think the authors underestimate the sensitivity of the Breath ID for
13CO2/12CO2 by a factor of 1000. I think that the manufacturer's literature states
that the machine can detect 1 part per million differences, not 1 part per
thousand.
(vii) the clinical history given is too descriptive, we need more data - patient
weight, BMI pre- and post- Nissen and pre- and post gastrectomy etc.
Minor Essential Revisions
(i) octanoide is not correct nomenclature. The test is either performed with
octanoic acid or octanoate. Details should be given (see major i above)
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-98 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Dumping syndrome following Nissen fundoplication in an adult patient
diagnosed By BreathID continuous online 13C-octanoide acid breath test a case
report.
Version: 2Date:10 December 2010
Reviewer: Simon Eaton
Reviewer's report:
The authors have satisfactorily responded to some of the reviewers comments,
but not all of them.
The following points still require attention before the paper is suitable for
publication.
(i) if you are an introducing a new diagnostic test, it is not satisfactory to refer to
normal ranges obtained using a completely different methodology (ie. discrete
time point measurements of 13C-enrichment by Ghoos et al.). Using someone
else's normal range using a different test meal and a different measurement
method is inappropriate. Normal ranges for t1/2 etc. must be provided measured
by the Breath-ID using the same test meal and protocol.
(ii) the authors have chosen not to respond to my comments about the use of
Breath_ID in the title, or to the quality of the figure. The figure is still of too poor
quality for publication and must be re-drawn. "Continuous online 13C/12C
monitoring" is more informative than "Breath-ID" in the title; otherwise the paper
looks like an advertisement for BreathiID rather than a scientific contribution to
the literature.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-98 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Dumping syndrome following Nissen fundoplication in an adult patient
diagnosed By BreathID continuous online 13C-octanoide acid breath test a case
report.
Version: 2Date:21 December 2010
Reviewer: Masaki Sanaka
Reviewer's report:
Discretionary revision
1. The revised version has been improved, but it still seems verbose to me.
2. The reason for the diagnosis of dumping syndrome still remains somewhat
unclear.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-98 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Dumping syndrome following Nissen fundoplication in an adult patient
diagnosed By Continuous online 13C/12C monitoring of 13C-Octanoic acid
breath test "a case report".
Version: 3Date:31 May 2011
Reviewer: Simon Eaton
Reviewer's report:
Discretionary Revisions
More details of the population studied for the normal range would be peferred.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests