Review for 10.1186/s12876-021-01711-x (2021)

Reviewer’s report
Title: 
First-line oral antiviral therapies showed similar efficacies in suppression
of serum HBcrAg in chronic hepatitis B patients
Version: 
1 
Date: 
10 Aug 2020
Reviewer's report:
Dear Authors
"First-line oral antiviral therapies showed similar efficacies in suppression of
serum HBcrAg in chronic hepatitis B patients". This is a study to evaluate the
profiles of serum HBcrAg in CHB patients treated with first-line nucleos(t)ide
analogues (NA): entecavir (ETV), tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) or
tenofovir alafenamide (TAF). There are major problems that should be address
1. The number of patients is too small to assess the decrease in HBcrAg level
according to NAs. In particular, it is even less meaningful to compare TAF and
TDF. Rather, it would be more meaningful to compare TDF/TAF and ETV.
Therefore, I think TABLE2 and 3 comparing TDF and TAF move to
SUPPLEMENTARY.
2. In conclusion, as authors mentioned, "The magnitude of reduction of HBcrAg
levels after 2-year first line treatment did not differ statistically among the
current first line NAs, although HBcrAg reduction was numerically greater in
tenofovir treated group."
However, the result of Figure 1 is different from Figure 2. In Figure 1, the
decline of HBcrAg level from base line to week 48 is slightly greater in ETV
group (4.87  2.64 vs. 5.23 3.5)
In addition, at week 96 detectable serum HBcrAg is higher proportion in
TDF/TAF group (94.1% vs. 88.9%)
I think, HBcrAg reduction was numerically greater in ETV treated group, even if
there is no statistically significant difference.
3. The age differences are observed between the two groups (TAF/TDF vs.
ETV). Please describe other studies' results on the difference in HBcrAg level
according to age in Discussion part.
4. In table 1, please insert the number of patients treated with TDF/TAF and
ETV, respectively.
Publons Reviewer Recognition
. Springer Nature can send verification of this
review directly to Publons (a subsidiary of Clarivate Analytics). If you would
like to take advantage of this service, please click on the “Yes” option below.
Your name, email address, title of the reviewed manuscript, name of the journal,
and date of your review submission (the “Review Data”) will then be transmitted
to Publons after the final decision on the manuscript has been made. If you have
already registered at Publons, they will notify you of the receipt of this review
and update your profile 
as per your settings and their policy. If you are not
registered with Publons, you will receive an email from them asking you to
register in order for them to be able to recognize your review on your new
profile page. Publons may use the Review Data to generate derivative metadata
for the benefit of Publons and you as a reviewer, carefully considering the
sensitivity of such information. For example, Publons may verify your record as
a reviewer by updating your profile published on its webservice if you have
registered for such service or help editors to identify candidate reviewers. Please
find the details of processing in Publons’ privacy policy
https://publons.com/about/terms
Yes
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following
questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 I agree for my report to be made available
under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
) if this manuscript is accepted for
publication. Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published
report have been included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not
be published.
If you are not happy for us to publish this report, please contact the editorial
office before completing the review.
If you wish, you can include your name in your published report. Please note
you must decide whether to include your name at the start of the process and
confirm this decision whenever prompted. If you change your decision later, we
will not be able to publish your name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please publish my name with my
report.
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
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes