Review for 10.1186/s12876-021-01826-1 (2021)

Reviewer’s report
Title: 
The burden and management of anemia in Greek patients with
inflammatory bowel disease:  a retrospective, multicenter, observational study
Version: 
0 
Date: 
10 Mar 2021
Reviewer's report:
This study is the first to collate data from a Greek cohort of IBD patients and
demonstrate the burden and outcomes in patients with IBD and anaemia. In that
sense, although the findings are not novel, they highlight the need for clinicians
to recognise the need to identify and treat underlying anaemia along then need to
control IBD activity. Such data should stimulate quality improvement also.
Please address the following comments:
Introduction
1.Please specify at the outset what types of anaemia you identified. This will
enable the reader the contextualise the anaemia you refer to and why iron
therapy was administered and to which court of anaemic patients.
2.Paragraph 2, 1st sentence- please reference this.
Methods
1. Did you exclude all patients with IBD that had any comorbidity?Please
clarify.
2. Among surgical procedures did you not include those that underwent
colectomy?
3. Please explain your policy with SIBDQ. Is this routinely administered to all
patients and was this done consistently across 17 centres for a retrospective
study?
4. Did you not have patients on other newer biologics such as vedolizumab or
ustekinumab? And what about Tofacitinib?
5. Was there a general policy adopted for how often blood counts are checked in
your IBD patients?
Results
1. Please specify what types of anaemia you encountered.
2. QOL was judged worse in groups B and C:is there a p value associated with
this?
3.What were the adverse events that led to cessation of iron therapy?
Discussion
Well written and considered, explains nuances around interpretation of ferritin in
the context of inflammatory activity well. Also good acknowledgement of the
limitation from bias as this was a referral centre. However, this could mean that
assessment may be less astute in more general centres where IBD patients
receive care?
Thank you for considering these comments.
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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?
Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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from apparent manipulation?
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