Review for 10.1186/s12876-015-0315-1 (2015)

Reviewer's report
Title:Multicenter study about hemorrhagic risk of heparin bridging therapy for
periendoscopic thromboprophylaxis
Version:2Date:28 February 2015
Reviewer: Jong Jin Hyun
Reviewer's report:
This is an informative retrospective “Multicenter study on hemorrhagic risk of
heparin bridging therapy for periendoscopic thromboprophylaxis”, and the
authors state that since heparin bridging therapy had significant risk of the
incidence of post-procedural bleeding compared with control, the use of heparin
bridging therapy should be re-evaluated.
Although this is a retrospective study and a prospective study is needed to
confirm the findings in the study by Matsumoto et al., I believe the authors have
pointed out a very important point regarding the use of heparin bridging therapy
which could affect our current clinical practice.
There are several minor points that need to be made. For readability’s sake,
please have a native English speaker to proofread the manuscript. Below is a list
of some recommended changes.
<Minor Essential Revisions>
TITLE
1. It is not very recommendable to use words such as ‘about’ in the title. I would
be better to use ‘on’ instead:
: Multicenter study on hemorrhagic risk of heparin bridging therapy for
periendoscopic thromboprophylaxis
ABSTRACT
1. Background. Since heparin bridging is currently still recommended, the
following sentence should be written in present tense.
: “… heparin bridging therapy has been recommended…” --> “… heparin bridging
therapy is recommended…”
2. Background. The last sentence could be modified as follows:
“Although heparin bridging has been reported to be effective in preventing
thrombosis, several reports have raised concerns about increased risk of
bleeding.”
3. Methods section. It would be better to change the second sentence as follows:
“Patients who underwent therapeutic endoscopy without heparin bridging therapy
were considered as controls.”
4. Results. The first sentence could be written as follows for readability:
“The incidence of post-procedural bleeding was significantly higher (13.5%,
33/245) in the heparin group compared with the control group (2.7%, 299/11102)
(p<0.001).
5. Results.
“In the heparin group, post-procedural bleeding was more likely to be delayed
bleeding.”
6. Conclusions. The first sentence could be written as follows:
“Heparin bridging therapy significantly increased the risk of post-procedural
bleeding compared with the control.”
7. Key words.
: Please try to use MESH terms. “Interruption of antithrombotic therapy” is not an
advisable key word.
BACKGROUND
1. Page 4, 11th line from above
: as far as --> as long as
MATERIAL AND METHODS
1. Page 4, 1st line from below
: underwent a therapeutic # underwent therapeutic
2. Page 5, 2nd line from above
: “Their chronic anticoagulants were limited to warfarin and dabigatran that were
available oral anticoagulant drugs at the period in Japan.” --> “Evaluated
anticoagulants were limited to warfarin and dabigatran which were available oral
anticoagulant drugs during the study the period in Japan.”
3. Page 5, 10th line from above. The sentence could be written as follows.
: “Background data on patients given HBTwere collected in terms of the
following:” --> “The following data were collected by retrospectively reviewing the
medical records:”
4. Page 6, 2nd line from above. It would be better to change the sentence as
follows.
“We asked 22 coaching institutions of Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy
Society which might undergo therapeutic endoscopyFinally,17 institutions
responded.” --> “Among all the coaching institutions of Japan Gastroenterological
Endoscopy Society that are known to perform therapeutic endoscopy, 22 were
contacted and 17 institutions agreed to participate in the study.”
RESULTS
1. Page 7, 15th line from above.
: “the mean age was 73.4(±8.5) years” --> “the mean age was 73.4±8.5 years”
2. Page 7, 21st line from above.
: 13.5% (33/245patients) --> 13.5% (33/245) patients
DISCUSSION
1. Page 11, 21st line from above
: ‘But’ --> ‘However’ (It is not recommendable to use ‘but’ at the beginning of a
sentence in a scientific paper.
TABLES & FIGUES
1. Table 1
“Table 1: Background” --> “Table 1. Baseline characteristics”
2. Table 1
: There is an ‘asterisk’ in the table but a ‘cross’ appear in the footnote. The ‘cross’
in the footnote should be changed to an ‘asterisk’.
3, Table 2
: Use a ‘period’ instead of ‘colon’ in the title
4. Table 3
: The footnotes should be rewritten or modified. It is not self-explanatory.
5. Table 4
: I don’t think it is necessary to make a separate table for the contents in Table 4.
This table could just be written or shown along with Figure 3.
6. Figure 1. Legend for the X axis “late: POD 4-“ is not appropriate. It could be
written as “Late: OPD#4”. As for this figure and the rest of the figures, please
refer to the instruction for authors.
7. Figure 3
: “not bleeding” --> “no bleeding”
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.