Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-12-8 (2012)

Reviewer's report
Title:Applicability of a short/rapid 13C-urea breath test for Helicobacter pylori: a
retrospective multicenter chart review study
Version: 1Date:6 July 2011
Reviewer: PHILIPPE LEHOURS
Reviewer's report:
The paper submitted by Schiloviz-Weiss et al. aimed to evaluate the duration
time needed for diagnosing Helicobacter pylori infection by the BreatID system
which is 13carbon labled urea breath test.
The study was conducted in several gastroenterology departments over the
world (Germany, Netherland, Israel, Italy and Switzerland) between 2001 and
2009.
One originality, is the authors monitored 13CO2/12CO2 concentrations in order
to determine positive or negative H. pylori status.
One major limit of this study is that they did not use any other diagnosis method
for H. pylori infection therefore limiting the interest of this study.
The paper need to be clarified and/or simplified.
Introduction/Background (Minor Essential Revisions):
UBT is not the most popular method used in epidemiological studies in general.
Serology is often used. The authors should better described shortly the
advantage of the UBT versus serology.
Methods (Minor Essential Revisions):
-study subjects : Why do some subjects had more than one test result. One
single test/subject should be enough? A clarification is needed.
-statistical analysis: The last paragraph is confused. A clarification is needed.
Abstract (Major Compulsory Revisions):
The abstract should be understandable by itself. The sentences from “Significant
differences....to.... 10 on average in the others” are confused. The authors have
to re-write the asbtract in order to better highlight the main results obtained in this
study.
Results (Major Compulsory Revisions):
-Table 1 and Table 5 can be fused into one single table. Why do the number of
patients are differents between the two tables?
-The authors claimed that there was a trend toward reduction in H. pylori
prevalence with time. They can not concluded anything due to the fact that they
included several centers among the world and also due to the high variability
number of patients included over time.
This parapgraph have to be removed as well as table 2.
-Duration of procedure: We do understand that test duration was different
between countries. But what is the meaning of that? Do it reflect machine
variability and/or bacterial inoculum influence? It should be discussed or removed
from the manuscript. Table 4 should also be removed.
Discussion (Major Compulsory Revisions):
As stated by the authors, the study can not be compared to other previous works
because they did not use other diagnostic method. It is one major limitation.
On page 9, from the second paragraph to the end : the authors do not really
discuss their results. It is just an interesting review of previous published papers
on UBT performances.
As a general comment, the authors should simplify their manuscript and better
highlight of the main originality of their work, ie, multicenter monitoring of
13CO2/12CO2 concentrations.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.