Review for 10.1186/s12876-021-01960-w (2021)

Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Association between regular arrangement of collecting venules and
Helicobacter pylori status in routine endoscopy
Version: 
0 
Date: 
18 May 2021
Reviewer's report:
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This is an interesting article in which they assess the regular arrangement of
collecting of venules (RAC) in endoscopic biopsies obtained from patients with
Helicobacter pylori and controls who do not harbour H pylori. 
However this observation is not new, there is an extensive review of previous
reports. 
It would be helpful if a table of previous reports and the current studies
on the same findings were created in the discussion section. 
This would reduce
the discussion section considerably. 
It is disappointing that the H pylori positive status cannot be predicted by the
absence of RAC. 
The accompanying pictures are very helpful and illustrative, however, in routine
practice outside Asia reliance on endoscopic pictures is less. This is underlined
by the references. 
The current results would favour taking adequate number of
biopsies is the correct way to diagnose Helicobacter pylori infection. 
It is likely that artificial intelligence could replace operator dependent visual
assessment. 
The authors point out the weaknesses of the study in that numbers are small and
that evaluation was confined to the gastric corpus biopsies. 
H pylori infection is usually denser in the antrum
The patients age maybe an important confounding factor 
Histology alone may not be sufficient to make a correct diagnosis. 
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