Review for 10.1186/s12876-024-03218-7 (2024)

Title: Level Of Interleukin 17 In Inflammatory Bowel Disease And Its Relation With Disease
Activity
Version: 4 Date: 03 Feb 2024
Reviewer's report:
This article examines IL-17 levels in IBD and the relationship between IL-17 and disease activity
in a cross-sectional study. Many of the initial ambiguities have been resolved through the last
revision, but after further reading, there are still some areas of concern.
1. The abstract could be more concise, for example, the "results" section could be summarized
according to the key points, and subheadings could be used for each section of the abstract. The
Methods section would also be better when integrated with subheadings.
2. "Sample size calculation" part I think what is needed is not the formula of the correlation
coefficient, because it is based on the statistical method chosen in the previous study, I think
we can directly express the chosen statistical method, and the presentation of the results can be
considered to choose the previous text explanation, but please try to use a generalized expression.
Please try to use generalized expressions.
3. The purpose of the article is to explore the relationship between IL-17 levels and the activity
of IBD, in the experimental design part, the activity of UC and CD were assessed using mayo
score and CDAI respectively, but how to select in other chemical markers was not indicated.
4. In the results section I think a paragraph is needed to summarize the data that is valid for
the purpose of the experiment, and some of the data analysis in the discussion section is best
reflected in the results section as well as the grouping of patients, for example, whether they
were active or not, would be better reflected in the results section.
5. The figure note of figure1 mentions that "The best detected cut off point from curve was 32
pg./mL yielding sensitivity of 97.5% and specificity of 95.2%. "However, there is no data to
reflect this conclusion, so I think it would be more convincing to add it.
6. The discussion section is rather unorganized and lacks conclusive statements. I think it is
necessary to reorganize the discussion section:
6.1 The discussion section mentions that "The current study included 100 subjects.... were males
and 55.7% of the subjects were males and 55.7% of the subjects were males. The current study
included 100 subjects and 55.7% were males and 55.7% were from urban areas." I think it would
be better to summarize Table 1 in the results section.
6.2 For the analysis of the data in Table 2, I would likewise consider placing the data in the
results section and expanding on the reasons for the results in the discussion section.
6.3 If it is thought that there may be a difference in IL-17 levels due to the influence of "anti-
TNF therapy and immunosuppressive therapies", I think it needs to be demonstrated what the
reasons were for not grouping the drugs in this study.
6.4 I think it would be more appropriate to refer to this trial here in the discussion of the smoking
factor "Most of the patients (78.5%) were nonsmokers.".
6.5 "We found that there was a non-statistically significant association between median serum
level of IL-17 & duration of disease .... Median IL-17 was higher among hospitalized cases than
non-hospitalized" is not supported by data and may need to be added.
6.6 "Moreover, the current study .... nor difference between CD patients according to disease
location and behavior "There is only a statement of the results of different experiments, but no
clear discussion of the results.
Overall, I think the discussion part does not show the purpose of the article's research better, and
it would be better if it could go through some more refinement.