Review for 10.1186/s12876-020-01557-9 (2020)

Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Analysis of gastroscopy results among healthy people undergoing a
medical checkup: A retrospective study
Version: 
1 
Date: 
19 Oct 2020
Reviewer's report:
PEER REVIEWER ASSESSMENTS: 
OBJECTIVE - Full research articles: is there a clear objective that addresses one
or several testable research questions? (Brief or other article types: is there a
clear objective?)
No - there are minor issues
DESIGN - Is the current approach (including controls and analysis protocols)
appropriate for the objective?
No - there are minor issues
EXECUTION - Are the experiments and analyses performed with sufficient
technical rigor to allow confidence in the results?
No - there are minor issues
STATISTICS - Is the use of statistics in the manuscript appropriate?
No - there are issues with the statistics in the study
INTERPRETATION - Is the current interpretation/discussion of the results
reasonable and not overstated?
No - there are minor issues
OVERALL MANUSCRIPT POTENTIAL - Has the author addressed your
concerns sufficiently for you to now recommend the work as a technically sound
contribution? If not, can further revisions be made to make the work technically
sound?
Probably - with minor revisions
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS: 
GENERAL COMMENTS: It has good material, but needs more revisions. 
REQUESTED REVISIONS: 
In Background, 2nd paragraph, please give a reference to the statement starting
with " as the pace of….". Otherwise, this is a subjective statement and does not
read too professional. 
The following statements in the whole second paragraph
also have speculations that need references to support. 
Can the authors report some drawbacks of the studies in the literature on routine
performance of gastroscopy in asymptomatic patients and then based on the
drawbacks existing, develop a hypothesis? Current Introduction/background
does not read too compelling.
In Results, line 124, replace "diseases" with "findings". 
The same
recommendation applies to the use of "disease/s" in the whole Results section. 
I suggest to also include a multivariate regression analysis on the presence of the
findings highlighted. 
For instance, if H. Pylori is the most significant predictor of
these findings, what about noninvasive H.Pylori testing, instead of a
gastroscopy?
In Discussion, 1st sentence, I recommend you to highlight what the strength of
your study is and how it contributes to the literature. Is it the largest study? Are
you reporting a finding no one else has reported before? 
I would also include a follow up. 
How were the endoscopic findings treated?
What if they were not treated? What would have been the outcome? Hence, the
argument for routine gastroscopy. 
I would also use some these discussions in the
Introduction 
to create the background for the study.
The gastric pathologies change from geographic region to region. 
As gastric
pathologies are more common in the Eastern world, the findings of the study
might be more relevant to that part of the world. Therefore, I suggest the authors
to reiterate this fact both as a strength and weakness of the study. 
Overall, this is good data and a very large study. The authors should do a better
job in setting up the background, hypothesis and discussion of the relevance of
their findings. 
They also need to stay away from generalizing their findings to
the whole world, but rather highlight it for the geography that they apply to.
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Declaration of competing interests
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Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
No
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
No
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes