Review for 10.1186/s12876-020-01579-3 (2021)

Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Metabolic Syndrome Components and Acute Pancreatitis: A Case-Control
Study in China
Version: 
0 
Date: 
28 Aug 2020
Reviewer's report:
I would like to congratulate the authors to make such an exhaustive effort to
conduct this study. However I have following concerns
1. The aim of the study was association of metabolic syndrome and incidence
rate of acute pancreatitis. The study design was case- control study. However if
we want to see incidence rate of acute pancreatitis and consider metabolic
syndrome as a risk factor, then we have to do a cohort study design. We have
estimate incidence rate over a time period and see presence of metabolic
syndrome prior to occurrence of events. Only in a case control study we can
assess risk factors when the event is rare. For this we have to take healthy control
and not the diseased control. The reason being some patients admitted to
hospitals have chronic diseases like inflammatory bowel disease or other chronic
inflammatory diseases which may itself result in weight loss and result in low
BMI after admission.
2. In table 1. the baseline characters of the case and controls should be given and
what were the diagnosis of controls?
3.What were the variables for multivariate logistic regression analysis? Was
comorbidity,diabetes were included for logistic regression? What was the cutoff
of age for multivariate logistic regression.
Over all the study lacks proper study design and selection of controls to answer
the research question. The multivariate analysis needs to be performed again and
needs more clarity about the selected variables.
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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?
No
Is the presentation of the work clear?
No
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
No