JerMa88/BMC_Gastroenterology_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03246-3 (2024)

Title: Genetically Predicted Gut Microbiota Mediate the Association Between Plasma
Lipidomics and Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis
Version: 0 Date: 15 Apr 2024
Reviewer's report:
The authors talk about microbial species throughout the results section. However, the 400+
microbiome features that they used in Table S2 include higher taxa levels, genes and pathways.
Among the 3 associated microbial features, just one (E. rectale) is actually a bacteria species.
Could the authors justify why features other than species were kept in the analysis? Microbiome
taxonomy analyses are done stratifying by taxa level (species, genus, family, etc.) and analysing
gene functions and taxonomy separately.
In methods, could the authors comment on any data pre-processing and normalisation done on
the microbiome dataset?
For microbiome field readers, less familiar with MR, it might be good to introduce the basics of
MR and why it would be useful to use it. As well as outlining the main aspects of the datasets
that were used in the study and why they were chosen.
Minor comments;
- Line 93: please revise the definition of the microbiome in introduction. "flora" needs to be
replaced by "microbiota", and gut microbiota is also composed of Archaea and Eukaryotes, not
only Bacteria.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03238-3 (2024)

Title: Risk Factors and Management of Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Patients With or Without
Antiplatelet and Anticoagulation therapy: a Multicenter Real-world Prospective Study
Version: 1 Date: 21 Dec 2023
Reviewer's report:
This study is a more detailed study of the association between GIB patients who received
antiplatelet or anticoagulant medications before ED admission for GIB and all-cause mortality,
and factors contributing to the treatment of GIB, with a larger sample of approximately 2300
GIB patients than previous studies.
However, there are some issues regarding the methods, which are described below to improve
this study.
Major points:
1. The number of variables in the multivariate logistic regression of the main analysis is too
large relative to the number of events, so overfitting is likely. Even if the number of variables
could be reduced, multicollinearity would need to be checked.
2. What about reducing the number of variables by summarizing them? For example, what about
using the HAS-BLED score to assess a patient's risk of bleeding?
3. I would suggest that you provide more detail on the definitions of the diseases and drugs
used as variables, such as ICD10 codes or WHO-ATC classifications so that the study can be
replicated using this paper as a reference. Also, for variables selected as variables for multivariate
logistic regression, please describe their clinical significance and previous studies that provide
the evidence.
4. Were patients grouped according to whether or not they were prescribed antiplatelet or
anticoagulant medications within six weeks before GIB events? How were patients treated if
they were taking both antiplatelet and anticoagulant medications during the period? Also, if they
were on a combination drug but most recently on a single drug, were they grouped by the drugs
most recently administered? Please describe, as this was not mentioned.
5. What about using the length of ED stay as a variable to indicate the severity of GIB? Also,
how about evaluating by cause-specific hazard ratios for all-cause death events since discharge
from the ED, rather than by odds ratios for the 28-day mortality rate since ED admission?
6. Please describe the sample size design as described in the STROBE statement.
Minor points:
Methods:
7. Please describe any reasons for setting medications within six weeks before GIB events.
Results:
8. If less than 10%, the value should be rounded to the first decimal place. If more than 10%,
the value should be rounded to the integer value.
9. If the P value is greater than 0.01, the P value should be rounded to the second significant
digit. If the P value is less than 0.01, the P value should be rounded to the first significant digit,
such as P = 0.007.
10. The number of excluded patients in Figure 1 was not stated, so please describe it.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03238-3 (2024)

Title: Risk Factors and Management of Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Patients With or Without
Antiplatelet and Anticoagulation therapy: a Multicenter Real-world Prospective Study
Version: 1 Date: 28 Dec 2023
Reviewer's report:
Authors performed this study to investigate the association between previous antiplatelet or
anticoagulant durg usage and outcomes in GIB patients.
The study has valuable points but I recommend some changes.
Introduction:
please specify the % of GIB associated associated with antiplatelet and anticoagulant uses
Also, information on the previous studies on GIB related to antiplatelt and naticoagulant is
needed
Methods:
GIB usually occurs in elderly populations. However, did you include pregant or breast feeding
women in the study?
Please specify medicatoins classified as anticoagulation and antiplatlets.
Comorbidity may also contribute significnatly to GIB incidences (ex. GI disorders - hepatic
disorders, GERD, PUD, and other cardiovascular disorders). Please add variables related to
comorobidities. If it is not possible, please add following information in the limitation.
The baseline characteristics seem different. How did you adjusted these difference throughout
the study?
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03238-3 (2024)

Title: Risk Factors and Management of Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Patients With or Without
Antiplatelet and Anticoagulation therapy: a Multicenter Real-world Prospective Study
Version: 4 Date: 28 Feb 2024
Reviewer's report:
I appreciate the fact that you responded to my revision suggestions as best you could. I think
this manuscript is better than the previous one.
However, I think the definitions of diseases and drugs still need to be revised.
ICD-10 codes have been added to ‘Results’ for the definitions of diseases, but should be listed
in ‘Methods’.
The definition of GIB should also be mentioned.
Drug definitions should also be described in ‘Methods’ for steroids, NSAIDs, PPIs, and
Vasoactive drugs, as well as antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03238-3 (2024)

Title: Risk Factors and Management of Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Patients With or Without
Antiplatelet and Anticoagulation therapy: a Multicenter Real-world Prospective Study
Version: 6 Date: 09 Apr 2024
Reviewer's report:
I appreciate your revision to my review. I think your manuscript will be more cited as a prior
study because you have detailed the definitions of diseases and drugs in 'Methods'. However,
only the WHO-ATC classification codes defining NSAIDs were not described, so please add
them.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03227-6 (2024)

Title: Physical Function as a Predictor of Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in
Patients with Pancreatic Cancer
Version: 2 Date: 10 Apr 2024
Reviewer's report:
The authors sufficiently addressed the critiques that we were raised by both reviewers during
the initial review, except for one minor issue that still remains:
"In the final sentence of the Discussion, the authors say that future studies are needed to
understand the effects of pre-treatment physical function on the development of CIPN. Did they
mistakenly cite reference #29 (Mundo et al., “Generalized additive models to analyze nonlinear
trends in biomedical longitudinal data using R: Beyond repeated measures ANOVA and linear
mixed models”) here?"
The reference for this sentence is now #47, but it still refers to the Mundo et al. paper.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03249-0 (2024)

Title: The burden and predictors of 30#day unplanned readmission in patients with acute liver
failure: a national representative database study
Version: 0 Date: 30 Jan 2024
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors
The paper is interesting although lacking novelty.
There are several bias due to the way you search the patients: through a database, which will
have patients from different places which will be diagnosed and treated.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03249-0 (2024)

Title: The burden and predictors of 30#day unplanned readmission in patients with acute liver
failure: a national representative database study
Version: 0 Date: 04 Mar 2024
Reviewer's report:
The authors submitted their manuscript entitled: The burden and predictors of 30#day unplanned
readmission in patients with acute liver failure: a national representative database study
I would like to raise one severe concern about the results shared by the authors. In various
portions of their results and tables, the authors have listed cells with a count of less than 11.
This is a violation of the DUA by HCUP (data provider). I would encourage the authors to go
through the guidelines in the use and publications of such de-identified data by HCUP via the
following link: https://hcup-us.ahrq.gov/db/nation/nrd/nrdchecklist.jsp
Additional concerns:
In their choice of readmission, the authors listed DIG018 as hepatic failure. DIG018 also includes
patients with chronic hepatic failure (K7210, K7211)
In their results they mentioned "60.4% were still admitted due to liver failure."
The authors are recommended to avoid using CCSR codes and instead go for specific ICD-10
codes.
The authors should also provide a clearer picture if they wanted to investigate cases with acute
or chronic LF or did they plan to investigate acute LF patients. In the discussion portion, they
have not elaborated on this. The management and prevention of acute and chronic will differ.
The authors are recommended to rerun their analysis for that portion.
Similar concerns may exist in the other CCSR codes used for the readmissions.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03248-1 (2024)

Title: Vitamin B6 ameliorates acute pancreatitis by suppressing the Caspase3 signaling pathway
Version: 1 Date: 25 Nov 2023
Reviewer:  Li-Kang Sun
Reviewer's report:
To the manuscript, which entitled “Vitamin B6 ameliorates acute pancreatitis by suppressing the
Caspase3 signaling pathway”, Authors expect to understand more of the developing mechanism
of acute pancreatitis, therefore to improve the current not optimal clinical treatment related to
acute pancreatitis. This is interesting idea, the design of this study is good, the story is easy to
follow, and all of the experiments are well presented. This study were permitted from the local
Ethics committee. However, there are some augmentations needs to discuss/improve:
First at all, the major point, current acute pancreatitis was defined as an inflammatory
disease, the pathological change were focused on inflammation and necrosis; the characteristic
changes of taurocholate sodium induced pancreatitis model were inflammation and necrosis,
too. The authors presented experiments demonstrated that, Vit.B6 pre-treatment ameliorates
acute pancreatitis, this effect is possibly correlated with protein syntheses of Bax and Bcl2,
and therefore authors emphasized “Vitamin B6 ameliorates acute pancreatitis by suppressing
the Caspase3 signaling pathway”. Historical scientists believed that, acute pancreatitis, acute
recurrent pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis are different disease, more recently believed scientists
that, there are the same disease in different phases. Whatever, pre-treat the disease model to
demonstrate these clinical effects to an acute disease like acute pancreatitis are not common, it
is difficult let physicians and so the scientists to follow and accept the logic of this conclusion.
More depth discussion are required.
Second, the evaluation of pathological changes are the critical part of this paper, I would
like strong suggest the authors present the related data in detail: for example, the contains of
the pathological changes, the table of the power scores in detail, the H&E and IF staining
presentation by choice different fold of magnification, and describe the changes in detail (with
Arrows). Special, with such high percentage detectable apoptosis cells as authors would like to
do, please choice different fold of magnification, and shown the no apoptotic part of pancreatic
tissue together in one.
Third, not really the minor point, there are different linguistic problems and spelling problems,
please check carefully before resubmission. Additionally, something strongly surprised me, the
literature reference editing the authors per hand, without use such program as usual.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03248-1 (2024)

Title: Vitamin B6 ameliorates acute pancreatitis by suppressing the Caspase3 signaling pathway
Version: 1 Date: 05 Dec 2023
Reviewer's report:
The authors have performed an excellent study, well designed with a potential direct application
in the preclinical drug discovery for pancreatitis. The manuscript can be accepted after revision.
1. Improvement of the grammar is required.
2. What is the clinical translation pathway for this treatment? Any trials planned? Write in
discussion section.
3. What are the limitations of this study? Write in discussion section.
4. As it is vitamin, I suggest the authors should comment on the pharmacokinetic problems.
5. The quality of the figures is low. The resolution should be improved.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03248-1 (2024)

Title: Vitamin B6 ameliorates acute pancreatitis by suppressing the Caspase3 signaling pathway
Version: 7 Date: 21 Feb 2024
Reviewer:  Li-Kang Sun
Reviewer's report:
To the revised manuscript, which entitled “Vitamin B6 ameliorates acute pancreatitis by
suppressing the Caspase3 signalling pathway”, Authors tried to improve the manuscript, and
effective change a lot. It makes me difficult to make a decision. So I would like use this
opportunity to discuss the questions which I mentioned before again:
First at all, the major point, acute pancreatitis was defined as an inflammatory disease, the
pathological change were focused on inflammation and necrosis; the characteristic changes of
taurocholate sodium induced pancreatitis model were inflammation and necrosis, too.
Per definitions, necrosis and apoptosis are different patho-physiological processes, somehow,
necrosis is generally characterized to be the uncontrolled death of the cell, usually following
a severe insult, resulting in spillage of the contents of the cell into surrounding tissues and
subsequent then caused the inflammation, and the process of apoptosis is characterized by
a number of characteristic morphological changes in the structure of the cell, together with
a number of enzyme-dependent biochemical processes. The result being the clearance of
cells from the body, with minimal damage to surrounding tissues, which do not correlated to
inflammation.
The authors presented experiments demonstrated that, in the in vivo experiment, both necrosis
and apoptosis are co-exist. The Authors emphasized “Vitamin B6 ameliorates acute pancreatitis
by suppressing the Caspase3 signalling pathway”. So that more depth discussion are required to
augment why Authors ignore the necrosis changes and emphasize the apoptosis changes.
Second, be sure, AR42J cell in vitro experiment cannot be defined as “Cell AP model”, perhaps
could be defined as an acinar inflammation experiment. The number of experiments or samples
in the statistical analysis should mentioned. Overall of pathological staining the bar-scale should
present.
Third, not really the minor point, the different linguistic problems, spelling errors and spelling
problems are still present, please check carefully before resubmission, or Authors ask for
professional help. Definitely, the manual editing of literature reference could cause big trouble
by publication process.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03250-7 (2024)

Title: Title: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis: The Efficacy and Safety of Radiofrequency
Ablation for Early Superficial Esophageal Squamous Cell Neoplasia
Version: 3 Date: 03 Apr 2024
Reviewer's report:
The authors have addressed the comments well. I have no further questions. Congratulate to
their work!
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03250-7 (2024)

Title: Title: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis: The Efficacy and Safety of Radiofrequency
Ablation for Early Superficial Esophageal Squamous Cell Neoplasia
Version: 3 Date: 04 Apr 2024
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for your revision. I agree to publish this paper
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03239-2 (2024)

Title: Latent profiles of fatigue in inflammatory bowel disease
Version: 1 Date: 01 Jan 2024
Reviewer's report:
This study aims to identify different types of fatigue in people with IBD using fatigue, anxiety
& depression, and sleep quality scores. The authors attempt to assess the relationship of fatigue
to each of these categories, including active IBD disease using latent profile analysis
Unsurprisingly, the authors identified that active IBD disease was associated with greater levels
of fatigue, but the highest “most severe” profiles were those with poor mental health.
Major:
The authors clearly identify the limitations of the study: selection bias due to recruitment via
social media/tertiary centre and hence a specific target audience, and also the lack of an objective
measure of clinical disease activity to discern IBS symptoms vs. IBD, making any conclusions
that can be drawn from the study difficult.
Whilst they identify that female gender, opioid usage and obesity were associated with higher
fatigue profiles, higher fatigue profiles were seen in those with higher disease activity, for which
obesity could be associated with higher disease activity.
- Was there data on comorbidities eg. heart failure, diabetes, thyroid disease, as these could cause
fatigue? If there was, could they be included in Table 1?
- Could the authors further elaborate any clinical implications of this work how they think this
piece of research eg. to screen for active disease and mental health problems in those who
complain of fatigue in clinic?
Minor:
- In the conclusion, the authors state “correlation between depression and fatigue underlines the
importance… etc.” – given no correlation statistic was given, I would suggest rephrasing
- Few minor spelling errors: prolife
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03239-2 (2024)

Title: Latent profiles of fatigue in inflammatory bowel disease
Version: 1 Date: 13 Feb 2024
Reviewer:  Akshay Kulkarni
Reviewer's report:
1. Congratulations to the authors, for being the first group to review a very pertinent conundrum
in IBD practice. Fatigue is indeed an under-diagnosed & under-evaluated clinical problem in
these populations.
2. I would like to know why a majority of patients in your study have Crohn’s disease. In most of
the national registries, ulcerative colitis is more common. Is there an evidence from population
prevalence studies that Australia has more Crohn’s than Ulcerative colitis?
3. Was there any correction placed before estimating the prevalence of fatigue in steroid users,
given that fatigue is a known adverse effect of steroids? Otherwise, fatigue in steroid users may
simply get correlated with IBD activity. Kindly oblige & provide a clarification.
4. Were the profiles correlated with nutritional deficiencies such as anemia and Vitamin D
deficiency? What was the correlation?
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03239-2 (2024)

Title: Latent profiles of fatigue in inflammatory bowel disease
Version: 5 Date: 25 Mar 2024
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for addressing the comments, I have no further comments.
1 minor comment: "The reported causes of fatigue in IBD are many and varied with current
approaches suggesting considering causes in isolation with approaches varying from considering
causes sequentially or in parallel2,12"
The word approaches has been used twice I suspect the sentence just needs rephrasing.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03240-9 (2024)

Title: Prediction of neoplastic gallbladder polyps in patients with different age level based on
preoperative ultrasound: a multi-center retrospective real-world study
Version: 0 Date: 10 Oct 2023
Reviewer's report:
Overview
The manuscript suggested the prediction model for neoplastic gallbladder polyps in patients with
gallbladder according to different age levels.  Overall, the manuscript incorporated a significant
amount of multicenter data and proposed a good predictive model according to the age groups.
However, the article has some limitations. The following issues need to be adequately addressed.
Major revision
Materials and Methods
Statistical analysis
1. It will be more interesting if the authors conduct multiple comparisons as well.
2. It is unclear whether the authors use internal or external validation. The authors should clarify
how to validate the model.
3. If possible, the mixed effects logistic regression model can be used to account for within-
hospital correlation as a sensitivity analysis.
Results
Univariate and multivariate analysis of neoplastic polyps
1. Did the best-cut off values of long- and short diameters of GPS were the same in different age
groups? If not, how did the authors determine the same 10.5mm and 8.0mm best cut-off values
of long and short diameter of GPS, respectively, as the common best cut-off across different
age groups?
Minor revision
1. English proofreading is recommended.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03240-9 (2024)

Title: Prediction of neoplastic gallbladder polyps in patients with different age level based on
preoperative ultrasound: a multi-center retrospective real-world study
Version: 0 Date: 28 Dec 2023
Reviewer's report:
The authors described a value of the linear scoring model to predict malignant GPs. The study
included many subjects, and statistical analysis was appropriate. I think it is a valuable report;
however, please revise several points.
In Figure 1A-C, the visibility of the numbers in the non-NP group was limited. I suggest
changing the color of the number or background.
In Fig.2, there are three groups; however, cutoff values were calculated only 10.5 mm and 8.0
mm. The authors should describe each cutoff value for three groups.
Linear scoring systems were described precisely; however, the authors should describe a
simplified method to evaluate the malignant potential for readers. I suggest to add the calculation
formula in the abstract or table.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03240-9 (2024)

Title: Prediction of neoplastic gallbladder polyps in patients with different age level based on
preoperative ultrasound: a multi-center retrospective real-world study
Version: 1 Date: 23 Mar 2024
Reviewer's report:
I have thoroughly reviewed the revisions made to your manuscript in response to the previous
comments. It is with great satisfaction that I note the comprehensive and diligent efforts you
have applied to address the concerns raised.
Your responsiveness to feedback and commitment to excellence are commendable. I believe that
the revised manuscript has successfully met the necessary standards for publication and could
contribute valuably to our scientific community.
Best regards,
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03242-7 (2024)

Title: Evaluation of the “Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease with
ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program
Version: 2 Date: 05 Feb 2024
Reviewer's report:
1. Does the time interval between FIT and colonoscopy affect the results of this study?
2. How does the authors handle false positive FIT results false negative FIT results?
3. In Figure 3, the authors should indicate what blue and red represent.
4. Will the authors still invite people who tested negative for FIT the previous year in the second
year? Please provide a detailed description of the invitation criteria.
5. Optimize Figure 1 and 2 to a white background.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03242-7 (2024)

Title: Evaluation of the “Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease with
ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program
Version: 2 Date: 11 Feb 2024
Reviewer:  Günther Egidi
Reviewer's report:
This is VERY IMPORTANT work. Even if it was not randomized, it is a very important building
block for the international discussion as to whether primary colonoscopy or a staged approach
as described here should be pursued.
For the discussion section, I would like to see the age limit of 40-80 years critically weighed
up. For younger people, it could be that the effort involved is unjustifiably high with only a few
hits - for over 70-year-olds, it must be borne in mind that the complication rate of colonoscopies
increases.
The discussion of this risk of possible complications is generally missing in the article.
In addition, I did not understand why people after colonoscopy also received an FIT.
Finally, I would like to see a discussion about which approach should be pursued further: the
significantly increased incidence of colorectal cancer in the Burgenland baseline has fallen very
impressively under (perhaps even because of) the intervention.
However, if the incidence has already fallen, the number needed to screen will probably be
higher in future.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03242-7 (2024)

Title: Evaluation of the “Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease with
ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program
Version: 2 Date: 22 Feb 2024
Reviewer's report:
The paper  Evaluation of the Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease
with ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program by Bresina et al, compares the results (in terms of effectiveness  and efficiency) of
an organized Programme based on annual FIT testing from 40 to 80 as compared  with the
opportunistic screening colonoscopy (OPP-COL).
The issue is crucial  in order to choice the best colorectal screening policy and the results are
worth of interest although based on an observational study.
The way of reporting the results is different from how it is commonly done and sometimes
incomplete.
To my opinion , some clarification and some new analyses (if possible) would improve the
quality of the paper.
Mayor points:
1) The paper shows as an organized screening program (B-PREDICT9) is superior to an
opportunistic screening either in effectiveness (see the trend of CRC incidence)   or in efficiency
(see the Positive Predictive Value (PPV). This result should be discussed more in depth.
2) It would be useful to compare the B-PREDICT program and the OPP-COL in the  same age
range i.e. over the age 50. Please add a table considering only the FITs performed in the age
range 50-80.
3) Row 209 “cumulative participation rate” : what does it mean?  The proportion of invited
subject s who participated at least once ? . Generally speaking (for example in Northern Italy
see row 307) participation is calculated  and reported for each screening round. Please define the
term cumulative participation and report the participation at first round and subsequent round
4) Please report in table 2 the  Positive Predictive Value (PPV) for CRC and HRA. Such
parameter provides an estimate of the efficiency of the use of colonoscopy
Minor Points:
Row 6:  Title not Titel
Row 74: European Guidelines for CRC screening “ please reports it among references
Row  38 and row109: almost all screening programs are based on a screening test and on
subsequent examination for positive subject. In other words all screening programs are two stage
screening. I would suggest not to use such a term.
Fig 1 and Fig 2:   in the text is written that Opportunistic screening colonoscopy (OPP-COL)
is offered to inhabitants above 50 years whereas in the figures results  are reported also in the
age class 40-49 . Please explain the discrepancy
.
.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03242-7 (2024)

Title: Evaluation of the “Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease with
ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program
Version: 2 Date: 25 Feb 2024
Reviewer's report:
The authors conducted an analysis to compare the efficacy of a population based FIT
based screening using annual FIT, using a low positivity cut-off level, with the nationwide
opportunistic colonoscopy program.
Available comparative evidence of FIT and colonoscopy based programs is limited to a single
round. The comparative analysis of a the neoplasia yield of single colonoscopy screening with
the yield of a FIT triggered colonoscopy does not provide novel results. The long-term analysis
of incidence trends in the organized and opportunistic setting could instead provide additional
relevant information.
However, a more careful and detailed description of the methods would be needed to interpret
the reported results.
Was FIT the only screening test offered in Burgenland over the study period, or was a parallel
opportunistic offer of colonoscopy screening was maintained?
How many screening rounds were performed during the period considered in the study? The
authors report the proportion of subjects performing at least one test, but it would be useful, for
example, to report also the average number of FIT tests performed by each subject as well as
the participation rate in the different rounds
Which was the compliance with TC referral among subjects with positive FIT test?
Study population: after having defined whether the stud includes opportunistic screening
Burgerland or in the rest of Austria only, it should be useful to present a table with actual figures
about the size and characteristics of the two populations compared, including baseline CRC
incidence rates.
Which is the method adopted to assess the annual percent changes in CRC incidence?
Could the authors provide comparative estimates by different age ranges, including the age range
recommended by the EU council recommendations (i.e. 50 to 74)?
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03242-7 (2024)

Title: Evaluation of the “Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease with
ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program
Version: 4 Date: 27 Mar 2024
Reviewer's report:
Being an observational study, some points remain not fully explained.
Stress the limit of the study in the discussion would be usefull
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03242-7 (2024)

Title: Evaluation of the “Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease with
ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program
Version: 4 Date: 31 Mar 2024
Reviewer:  Günther Egidi
Reviewer's report:
Liebe Kolleg*innen,
ich bin euch außerordentlich dankbar für eure Arbeit.
Zugleich hoffe ich, dass sie bald veröffentlicht wird, damit ich sie zitieren kann.
Als Vertreter der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeinmedizin und Familienmedizin
(DEGAM) bei der deutschen S3-Leitlinie zum Kolorektalen Karzinom ist es mir ein
Anliegen, das systematische Aussenden von FIT-Testkits als Alternative zur in Deutschland
gebräuchlichen opportunistischen Screening-Koloskopie zu etablieren.
Da kommt mir eure Arbeit, die belegt, dass eben das systematische FIT-Screening überlegen
ist, wie gelegen.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03242-7 (2024)

Title: Evaluation of the “Burgenland PREvention trial of colorectal cancer Disease with
ImmunologiCal Testing” (B-PREDICT) - a population-based colorectal cancer screening
program
Version: 4 Date: 13 Apr 2024
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for providing clarifications and for changing the report to address reviewers’
comments
I have however some remaining concerns.
Introduction
The European guidelines for quality assurance of CRC screening published by IARC in 2010
and the recently updated EU council recommendations on cancer screening are recommending
FIT at 2-year interval.
You should justify the rationale for the different choice in Austria
Results
I would suggest improving the descriptive analysis of the results
The opp-col and the B-predict results are both referring to the activity in Burgenland. Correct?
If so, it should be stated more explicitly
B-predict
1) It would be useful to have the proportion of people participating at least once (already
indicated) the average number of tests performed by the participants over the entire period
(mentioned in the responses)
2) The number (and %) of subjects with at least one positive test result over the time interval of
the study and the number (and %) of those with a positive FT who performed a colonoscopy
Opp-col
1) The 10045 people having a TC in the Opp-col program were all Burgenland residents?
2) Do you know whether some people undergoing regular FIT in the B-predict program had also
colonoscopy (without having a positive FIT results)?
3) How should the data be interpreted? 10045 people out of the 79809 (2003) to 98810 (2014)
inhabitants aged 50 to 75 had at least a colonoscopy and this number should be added to the
number of those performing FIT in the B-predict program in the same age range (how-many?)?
This latter information is relevant as tis opportunistic screening coverage might have contributed
to the incidence decline
The comparison of the colonoscopy results should refer to the same age range and it should
possibly be presented stratified by sex, given the different target age range of the two groups
(opportunistic TCs and FIT+ TCs). Also, TCs among people aged 40 to 49 are offered within a
surveillance protocol, as indicated by the authors in their response to reviewers, they should not
be included in the comparison. Figures 1 and 2 are already presenting results by age, sex and
program, but they are including surveillance TCs in the younger age groups and are considering
together all cases aged 70 and older, while FIT programs targets people up to age 80 and the TC
program up to age 75. I think a table might be more informative in this case
Discussion
Line 325-26 In Italy screening starts at age 50 and it was never offered at younger ages.
Opportunistic activity in particular in the younger age groups is minimal.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03228-5 (2024)

Title: HAEMORRHOIDAL DISEASE IN PREGNANCY: RESULTS FROM A SELF-
ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE ADMINISTERED BY MEANS OF A SOCIAL
NETWORK
Version: 1 Date: 01 Dec 2023
Reviewer's report:
PEER REVIEWER ASSESSMENTS:
OBJECTIVE - Full research articles: is there a clear objective that addresses a testable research
question(s) (brief or other article types: is there a clear objective)?
Yes - there is a clear objective
DESIGN - Is the current approach (including controls and analysis protocols) appropriate for
the objective?
Yes - the approach is appropriate
EXECUTION - Are the experiments and analyses performed with technical rigor to allow
confidence in the results?
Not sure - key details are missing from the manuscript
STATISTICS - Is the use of statistics in the manuscript appropriate?
Not sure - I am not able to assess the statistics in this study
INTERPRETATION - Is the current interpretation/discussion of the results reasonable and not
overstated?
No - there are minor issues
OVERALL MANUSCRIPT POTENTIAL - Is the current version of this work technically
sound? If not, can revisions be made to make the work technically sound?
Yes - current version is technically sound
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS:
GENERAL COMMENTS: This is a great project and the data will be helpful for future
researchers.
At this time it is hard for me to adequately comment on your results b/c I am having trouble
understanding your results w/the various tables/figures. Please see my comment below for ways
to improve your manuscript. Once the methods and results are more clear - I am happy to review.
Comments:
1) Please add a table 1 to describe your population as best as possible including those w/HD
and those w/out.
2) Current tables 1-2 can be put together and create a new table 2. Also OR are not appropriate
for this analysis or from what I understand you did from the text. If you did to a regression
analysis please include details in your methods section. From my understanding you would just
need to conduct a t-test to look at group differences.
Please consider changing your figures to tables that report frequency and percentage vs using
so many small figures. The message of the differences between the groups gets lost as you have
to review each figure. Much easier to view in a table.
REQUESTED REVISIONS:
See above.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03228-5 (2024)

Title: HAEMORRHOIDAL DISEASE IN PREGNANCY: RESULTS FROM A SELF-
ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE ADMINISTERED BY MEANS OF A SOCIAL
NETWORK
Version: 5 Date: 19 Jan 2024
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for considering my comments and improving your manuscript.
However, I spotted many spelling errors. There are surely others. Please proofread your
manuscript.
Please review the manuscript with a native English speaker.
Asking « for »
in about 50% of the patients
in our patient material, (70%
Twentyfour out of 25 patients
Figure : Not improved + No improvement (please use the same words improvement or improved)
Suffer from
Were the remedies…
What is (was) your daily fluid
Maximum
Please correct the presentation of the question 20 and 21 in the appendix.
Table 3. Prescriptions or counselling adopted by different professionals involved in treating HD
in pregnancy. Figures are the number of answers recorded at Q5 and Q38 (Q5: IF YES, WHICH
DIAGNOSIS WAS MADE?) = there is a problem
Table 4: Risk factor N.O (%)
Table 4: Risks factors for the (of) occurrence
Title of the table 4 explaining the results is unusual.
Table 1: you put on the group A the number/proportion of patients improved or not, and only
improved in the group B. Is there a particular reason?
Please remove the Asterix in the middle in this same table.
I do not believe that concluding that surgery should be offered to some patients during pregnancy
is appropriate from the study results.
Please limit yourself to your results.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03228-5 (2024)

Title: HAEMORRHOIDAL DISEASE IN PREGNANCY: RESULTS FROM A SELF-
ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE ADMINISTERED BY MEANS OF A SOCIAL
NETWORK
Version: 5 Date: 21 Jan 2024
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?)
Yes - there is a clear objective
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?
Yes - current version is technically sound
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS:
GENERAL COMMENTS: I do not feel your manuscript is ready for publication at this time.
Please consider your main message (i.e., result) and what data you need to show to illustrate
the point.
As a reviewer - I feel I want to see at table of your 1) population; 2) characteristics of sample
by groups; and 3) your main analysis.
The figure you have is also beneficial but needs to be redesigned - please look at similar figures
in our published manuscripts as a guide.
REQUESTED REVISIONS:
See previous comments submitted in my first review:
1) Please add a table 1 to describe your population as best as possible including those w/HD
and those w/out.
2) Current tables 1-2 can be put together and create a new table 2. Also OR are not appropriate
for this analysis or from what I understand you did from the text. If you did to a regression
analysis please include details in your methods section. From my understanding you would just
need to conduct a t-test to look at group differences.
Please consider changing your figures to tables that report frequency and percentage vs using
so many small figures. The message of the differences between the groups gets lost as you have
to review each figure. Much easier to view in a table.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03228-5 (2024)

Title: HAEMORRHOIDAL DISEASE IN PREGNANCY: RESULTS FROM A SELF-
ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE ADMINISTERED BY MEANS OF A SOCIAL
NETWORK
Version: 8 Date: 14 Apr 2024
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?)
Yes - there is a clear objective
DESIGN - Is the current approach (including controls and analysis protocols) appropriate for
the objective?
Yes - the approach is appropriate
EXECUTION - Are the experiments and analyses performed with sufficient technical rigor to
allow confidence in the results?
Yes - experiments and analyses were performed appropriately
STATISTICS - Is the use of statistics in the manuscript appropriate?
Yes - appropriate statistical analyses have been used in the study
INTERPRETATION - Is the current interpretation/discussion of the results reasonable and not
overstated?
Yes - the author's interpretation is reasonable
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?
Yes - current version is technically sound
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS:
GENERAL COMMENTS: The authors have adequately addressed the reviewer's comments.
This manuscript is a small study to examine symptoms of haemorrhodial disease among
women during pregnancy or post-partum. The study was simple; however, does provide novel
information that can be used for developing prevention strategies.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03232-9 (2024)

Title: IMAGING-BASED DIAGNOSIS OF SARCOPENIA FOR TRANSPLANT-FREE
SURVIVAL IN PRIMARY SCLEROSING CHOLANGITIS
Version: 2 Date: 19 Feb 2024
Reviewer:  Tajana Filipec Kanižaj
Reviewer's report:
The paper represents cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the predictive value of the
cross-sectional imaging-based skeletal muscle index (SMI) for transplant-free survival (TFS)
in patients with PSC.
Sarcopenia is a multifactorial process associated with various liver diseases. Is it possible, from
the results of the study, to answer the question about a possible differences in the prevalence of
sarcopenia depending on various types of complications of PSC (cirrhosis, cholangitis, dominant
stenosis/malignant stricture) and type/activity of inflammatory bowel disease?
What is the impact of sarcopenia on the outcome of PSC recipients after liver transplantation?
The title, abstract, manuscript organization, discussion, table are appropriate.
Language requires minor polishing to achieve precision, clarity and grammatical correctness.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03232-9 (2024)

Title: IMAGING-BASED DIAGNOSIS OF SARCOPENIA FOR TRANSPLANT-FREE
SURVIVAL IN PRIMARY SCLEROSING CHOLANGITIS
Version: 2 Date: 24 Feb 2024
Reviewer's report:
Some comments are listed as follows.
Background
In the sentences “(1) recurrent cholangitis with #2 septic episodes over a  span of 6 months”,
the words “a  span” should be revised as “a span”.
In the Background part, could the authors elaborate on the value of the “country-specific standard
exception (SE) criteria”?
Methods
In the Data collection part, in the sentence “Patient data was collected via electronic review of
patient records”, the word “was” should be revised as “were”.
The authors said “This retrospective, single-center study...”. The ethical approval is given in
2018, but the patients are included from 2018 to 2022.
In the sentence “Out the initial 141 patients, 46 were excluded from the study”, the word “of”
should be added after the word “Out”.
Results
In the Risk factors of impaired transplant-free survival part, in the sentence “Univariate Cox
regression analyses were performed to identify  risk factors for impaired TFS”, the words
“identify  risk” should be revised as “identify risk”.
In the Sarcopenia & BMI in SE criteria part, in the sentence “we substituted BMI reduction
(Table 2) for L3-SMI sarcopenia”, the word “for” should be revised as “with”.
In the Table 1, the data “35.3% (12)” should be revised as “33.3% (12)”.
Discussion
In the sentences “This finding supports the growing evidence that sarcopenia is an independent
predictor of adverse outcome in patients with other CLD” and “the predictive value of PMI for
outcome of CLD remains controversial”, the word “outcome” should be revised as “outcomes”.
Authors’ contributions
In the sentence “PK, FR, FC collected data”, the word “and” should be added between the words
“FR” and “FC”.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03232-9 (2024)

Title: IMAGING-BASED DIAGNOSIS OF SARCOPENIA FOR TRANSPLANT-FREE
SURVIVAL IN PRIMARY SCLEROSING CHOLANGITIS
Version: 2 Date: 12 Mar 2024
Reviewer's report:
I congratulate the authors for conducting this important study on the effect of sarcopenia on
transplant-free survival in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis and a very nicely written
manuscript. Although patient number is small, as PSC is rare, I believe the findings are important
to provoke thoughts on conducting a multicenter and larger studies.
I have few comments:
• Please use keywords that are not included in the title.
• I suggest authors to make supplementary figure 2 as a main table as the majority of death
happened in the for the 12 months, and it will complement the main Figure 2.
• Can authors specifically assess the impact of gender, presence of cirrhosis, decompensation
withing the sarcopenia group etc. as a Kaplan-Meier table (for death as end-point and transplant-
free survival)?
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03232-9 (2024)

Title: IMAGING-BASED DIAGNOSIS OF SARCOPENIA FOR TRANSPLANT-FREE
SURVIVAL IN PRIMARY SCLEROSING CHOLANGITIS
Version: 3 Date: 30 Mar 2024
Reviewer's report:
I appreciate the time and thoughts, the authors have put into answering the questions.
With the revisions applied to the manuscript, the message is now much stronger.
Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03232-9 (2024)

Title: IMAGING-BASED DIAGNOSIS OF SARCOPENIA FOR TRANSPLANT-FREE
SURVIVAL IN PRIMARY SCLEROSING CHOLANGITIS
Version: 3 Date: 03 Apr 2024
Reviewer's report:
Some comments are listed as follows:
1.According to the second question from Reviewer #1, the authors should explain the impact of
sarcopenia on the outcome of PSC recipients after liver transplantation, the authors said “…we
cannot adequately respond to the question as this would require a liver transplantation control
group without PSC”. But a liver transplantation control group without sarcopenia is needed to
respond to the question.
2.According to the second question for the methods part form Reviewer #2, the authors said
“The ethical approval to conduct this study was given in 2018 by the local ethics committee
but the retrospective data collection only occurred in spring 2022”. The authors should collect
patients’data until 2018 because this is a retrospective study and the ethical approval was given
in 2018, or get new ethical approval which is given after 2022.
3.According to the first question in major comments part from Reviewer #3, the authors said
“To prevent further confusion, we do not indicate CP Grades for non-cirrhotic patients and have
revised table 1 accordingly”. There are 48 liver cirrhosis patients, but Child-Pugh Grades are
listed for 45 patients in the table 1. Please revise your data carefully.
4.According to the fourth question in major comments part from Reviewer #3, the authors should
explain the difference and connection between myosteatosis and loss of muscle mass, rather
than myosteatosis and sarcopenia.
5.In the supplementary Figure 10 and Figure 13, the numbers “0” and “1” should be revised as
words “no liver cirrhosis” and “liver cirrhosis” respectively.