JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Reviewer's report
Title:Breast cancer risk and genetic ancestry: a case-control study in Uruguay
Version:2Date:9 October 2014
Reviewer: Lisa Hines
Reviewer's report:
This manuscript provides an exploration between genetic ancestry (nuclear and
mitochondrial DNA) and breast cancer risk in a case-control study among
Uruguayan women. Overall, this study is of interest and worthy of publication.
However, there are a few issues that the authors need to address, some of which
may impact the overall interpretation of their findings.
Major Compulsory Revisions:
1) When analyzing the relationship between nuclear ancestry and breast cancer
risk, the results presented in Table 3 reflect the odds ratio for a 1% increase in
African, Native American and European ancestry separately. The lack of a
significant association could reflect that the relationship between % ancestry and
breast cancer risk is not truly linear, and it is questionable that a 1% difference in
ancestry is meaningful on a scale of 0-100. This relationship should be explored
and presented using categories, such as median or quartiles, to determine
whether this is the case.
2) While the initial sample size was 328 (164 cases + 164 controls), the
multivariate analyses that reflect the main findings of the manuscript includes
only 312 due to missing data for the exposure of interest, nuclear ancestry.
Ultimately, this is the true sample size for evaluating this relationship. It would
make more sense to re-do Table 1 by only including those who do not have
missing data on the exposure of interest and were included in the final analyses
(consistent with Tables 2 & 3).
3) The rationale for what variables from Table 1 where then explored as potential
confounders is Table 2 is not clear. In addition to age, education, SES, hospital,
place of residence, factors such as menopausal status, age at first birth and
family history of breast cancer were significantly associated with case/control
status. However, they were not explored in Table 2 (association with ancestry) as
potential confounders or considered in the multivariate analyses. Why?
Minor Essential Revisions
1) In Table 1, sample size estimates are provided for every covariate. It makes
this table quite lengthy. I think this table could be simplified by including n for
missing data in the footnotes. As is, the current table is missing N for waist-hip
ratio and BMI. In addition, the sample size for age at first child is not consistent
with the N for % having children. Is this attributed to missing data for age at first
child? This should also be clarified for menopause and age at menopause.
2) In Table 4, the mitochondrial ancestral group (European, etc) and sample size
should be presented prior to the specific haplogroup. It is confusing to have it
listed at the bottom.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Breast cancer risk and genetic ancestry: a case-control study in Uruguay
Version:2Date:15 October 2014
Reviewer: Luis Carvajal Carmona
Reviewer's report:
This is a well-written manuscript that reports the result of an admixture analyses
of breast cancer cases and controls from the Uruguayan population. Unlike
previous reports by Laura Fejerman, Elad Ziv and co-workers who have found
that increased European ancestry is a risk factor for breast cancer in Mexican
and US Latino women, this study found no association between ancestry and
cancer risk in Uruguay. This could be explained by different environmental
exposures that mediate cancer risk in this South American population and/or by
the contrasting genetic make up between Uruguay (a predominantly
European-derived population) and populations from Mexico and US Latinas (who
a larger Amerindian component). Overall, this is a well-designed and performed
study and my only suggestion will be to discuss in more details the limitations of
the power of the study to detect a significant association. For example,
case-control samples from a country like Mexico, where the European and
Amerindian proportions are roughly similar, are likely to provide more power to
detect ancestral differences (if they exist) that may drive cancer risk. Doing the
same study in a predominantly Amerindian or European population (like
Uruguay) is likely to require a larger sample size. Could the author discuss what
would be the require sample to detect a significant difference given the
proportions of genetic admixture in Uruguay? In other words, did they fail to
detect an association between cancer and admixture simply because their
sample size was relatively small?
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Endometriosis node in gynaecologic scars. A study of 17 patients and the
diagnostic considerations in clinical experience in tertiary care centre.
Version:1Date:23 October 2014
Reviewer: Francisco Carmona
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory revisions
1.- Did the authors use the same diagnostic work-up in all patients?. If not, why?
If yes, may the authors compare the diagnostic accuracy of the different methods
used, i.e.: ultrasound, CT, MRI, fine needle aspiration?
In this reviewer opinion, it will help clinicians when they face a patient with an
endometriosis scar.
2.- It is really surprising that only 30% of patients had pathological diagnostic
confirmation (pag. 7, line 153). I suppose it is a mistake as the authors state
several times that all the patients had pathological confirmation. If it is not the
case, the paper does not deserve publication.
3.-More emphasis should be done in the discussion section about the role of fine
needle aspiration to previously diagnose the nodule's nature. Some role for the
preoperative trucut biopsy?
4.- The authors state that although a multifactorial etiological hypothesis is
plausible they emphasize the role of immune tolerance during pregnancy. Again,
in this reviewer opinion, their data do not support that hypothesis neither do the
literature.
Minor essential revisions.
English mistakes need to be corrected (I suggest a native speaker revision).
Table 1 needs extensive revision (it has even Spanish language!)
Please spell out all the abbreviations the first time you use it.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Endometriosis node in gynaecologic scars. A study of 17 patients and the
diagnostic considerations in clinical experience in tertiary care centre.
Version:1Date:24 October 2014
Reviewer: Tirso Perez-Medina
Reviewer's report:
There are some problems to comment
The writing of the institution is different in different places (12 October hospital,
Hospital 12 de Octubre…)
Lines 33 and 102: The time of study (January 2000 to January 2012) is TWELVE
years not eleven
Line 56: likelyrequired
Line 96: “of a node” is redundant
Line 105: Table 1 without brackets
Line 124: Mean must go along with SD
Lines 161 and 214: Endometiosis
Lines 175 and 175: Mean and median are not comparable
Line 185: The phrase has no sense
Line 188: C??
Line 245: a,??
Line 317: Literatura
Line 323: 270-7
Line 325: 170-2
Line 340: obstetrical
Line 340: análisis
Line 373: repot
Line 381: 420-5
Line 388: This reference is repeated (reference 9)
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:A case with life-threatening uterine bleeding due to postmenopausal uterine
arteriovenous malformation
Version:2Date:8 October 2014
Reviewer: Tae-Hee Kim
Reviewer's report:
postmenopausal AVM is very interesting phenomenom, but there is no cause
and pathophysiology in this article.
so, It is only case report, I thought.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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 I have no competing interests's below
Reviewer's report
Title:A case with life-threatening uterine bleeding due to postmenopausal uterine
arteriovenous malformation
Version:2Date:28 October 2014
Reviewer: Rosalie M Grivell
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions - none
Minor Essential Revisions - none
Discretionary Revisions - none
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Multiplicative Disadvantage of Being an Unmarried and Inadequately
Insured Woman Living in Poverty with Colon Cancer: Historical Cohort in
California
Version:2Date:15 October 2014
Reviewer: Nele Brusselaers
Reviewer's report:
I read with interest the article of Levitz et al, on the influence of gender, marital
status, poverty and health insurance on the treatment of colon cancer by means
of chemotherapy. The article is clearly presented and shows interesting and
important findings considering inequalities in health care in the United States.
I do have a few comments:
Major:
- How did the authors manage missing data? Complete case analyses? Please
specify in the methods section.
- Last sentence of the results: gender? I thought all analyses presented in this
paper were based on women only? Maybe the results of the cox regression
model should be presented as well? Now the authors mention only that there is
no difference.
Minor:
- The authors like to use abbreviations, but this hampers readability. Some of
them are only used once or twice, so these could easily be omitted (e.g. AA,
African American). E.g. abbreviation of chemotherapy (CT) does not add any
benefit (even the same word count), and even writing marital status and health
insurance in full would not be a burden for the reader (on the contrary).
- Line 190: should be previously married I suppose, instead of previously
unmarried?
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence of Trichomonus Vaginalis Infection in Egyptian Women: Cross-
Sectional Study
Version:2Date:21 July 2014
Reviewer: Asghar Fazaeli
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions:
1) The manuscript Title, Aim and Introduction shows that the study is a
cross-sectional prevalence survey; however, later in the methods, results and
discussion, the story has been shifted to a comparatively analysis of the results
focusing on detection methods comparison. 2) If the modified Diamond Culture is
considered as the gold standard (detecting 30 positive cases), the specificity of
the Kalon Latex Test (detecting 50 cases as positive) must be much lower than
what the authors showed (97.9%).
Minor Essential Revisions:
1) The data of the tables are mostly repeated in the text. 2) The photographs
could be omitted or decreased to one photo. 3) The last paragraph before the
discussion, does not make sense. 4) In the discussion part: a) The first
paragraph should be omitted; b) the lines 133 to 137 should be documented with
references; c) lines 138 to 140 should be omitted. 4) As clinical symptoms are
highlighted and analysed by the authors, other possible accompanied STI agents
would be recommended to be considered.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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 interest.
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence of Trichomonus Vaginalis Infection in Egyptian Women: Cross-
Sectional Study
Version:5Date:25 August 2014
Reviewer: Asghar Fazaeli
Reviewer's report:
1- English writing still need improving.
2- The parasite species name should be corrected to standard writing as “T.
vaginalis“
3- The reference number of the agreement issued by the local organization
Ethical Committee must be referred to in the manuscript.
4- The reference list should be modified according to the format defined by the
Journal guideline.
5- The authors were recommended, in the first reviewing, to include the other STI
or vaginitis agents detected in the study patients, particularly the T. v positive
cases. However, they are not yet mentioned in the manuscript.
6- There is no caption for the Figure to address different panels; neither the
panels are labeled to be addressed in the Fig description.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence of Trichomonus Vaginalis Infection in Egyptian Women: Cross-
Sectional Study
Version:5Date:28 August 2014
Reviewer: Barbara Body
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory revisions:
1) Although the authors addressed why they chose not to look at other causes of
vaginitis in their cover letter, they didn’t include this information in the manuscript.
A simple statement such as, “We have previously studied other causes of
vaginitis in our center and limited this study to a large scale cross-sectional study
to assess the incidence of Trichomonas.” would be sufficient.
2) The manuscript needs to clarify exactly what number of specimens were
uniquely positive by culture, Giemsa, wet prep and Kalon. If Kalon detected all 50
positives – those positive by culture, Giemsa and Wet prep, that would be
remarkable.
3) I don’t find credible the high percentage of specimens positive uniquely by
Geimsa and wet prep ( & possibly Kalon), respectively compared to culture. This
is not comparable to data in the literature which would typically show wet prep or
Geimsa to detect about 50% of those specimens positive by culture. This unusal
performance needs explanation.
4) The focus of this manuscript and therefore the conclusions and
recommendations should be statements pertaining to the testing of women for
Trichomonas vaginalis. It is not appropriate for the conclusion & recommendation
section to make conclusions about the reliability of the Kalon latex agglutination
test reliability. This manuscript has not presented data that demonstrates by
discrepant analysis that the results of the Kalon test were correct.
5) Photos are unlabelled and without narrative duplicate photos are still present
and need to be removed for the Giemsa stain and wet prep.For the Wet Prep
photo, I would use only the small photo on the upper left.
Minor essential revisions
There are still numerous typographical errors including misspelling of
Trichomonas in the title of the manuscript that need to be addressed.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I have participated in clinical trials for the FDA clearance of nucleic acid
amplification tests from two manufacturers. I did not receive compensation but
the company for which I work was paid to perform the testing. I do not have any
other financial or non-financial competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence of Trichomonus Vaginalis Infection in Egyptian Women: Cross-
Sectional Study
Version:7Date:28 October 2014
Reviewer: Barbara Body
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory revisions:
I have no additional suggestions for compulsory revisions. I am grateful to the
editors and authors for their patience with my concerns in this review process.
Minor essential revisions
There are still typographical errors but most will be addressed in the galley
process.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related
research interests
Quality of written English: Fine
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests: I have participated in clinical trials for the FDA
clearance of nucleic acid amplification tests from two manufacturers. I did not
receive
compensation but the company for which I work was paid to perform the testing. I
do
not have any other financial or non-financial competing interests
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
Declaration of competing interests:
I have participated in clinical trials for the FDA
clearance of nucleic acid amplification tests from two manufacturers. I did not
receive compensation but the company for which I work was paid to perform the
testing. I do not have any other financial or non-financial competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Family disruption and sexual deprivation among married HIV positive
women in Osogbo, southwest Nigeria: role of inappropriate disclosure
Version:2Date:29 August 2014
Reviewer: Venkatesan Chakrapani
Reviewer's report:
Minor Essential Revisions (such as missing labels on figures, or the wrong use of
a term, which the author can be trusted to correct)
1. In the abstract, to expand ‘HCT’ the first time it occurs.
2. Table 4: Change “Partner’s aware” to “Partner’s awareness”
3. There is repetition of the same information in the first and second paragraphs
of the Discussion section (regarding “seeking sexual satisfaction/gratification
outside of marriage”). This can be revised.
4. The entire paper primarily relies on bivariate chi-square test results. A logistic
regression with dependent variable as sexual deprivation (yes or no) could have
been conducted (with significant independent variables), which would have given
some insights.
Major Compulsory Revisions (which the author must respond to before a
decision on publication can be reached)
1. Title: ‘Family disruption’ in the title seems to be misleading, as the focus is
entirely on ‘sexual deprivation’ and not on how the family is disrupted in other
ways. The authors can consider rephrasing the title to accurately reflect the
content of the article.
2. Both in the Introduction and Discussion sections, ‘sexual deprivation’ is mainly
discussed in terms of HIV transmission risk to others (from HIV-positive women
to others or to spouses of these women from other women). For some of the
claims made in the first two paragraphs of the Discussion section, if evidence are
available from other studies from Africa or other developing countries, then those
studies can be cited. Otherwise, the statements made in the first two paragraphs
(Discussion section) could be mistaken as arising from the moral attitude of the
author. Enjoying a happy sexual life within marriage is touched upon, but having
a fulfilling sexual life as a sexual right of the couples can be further elaborated.
3. It is not clear whether all the partners of the respondents were aware of the
HIV-positive status of their wives. There are contradictions in the information
given in the second paragraph of the Results section, Table 2 and Table 4
(source of disclosure). While as per the data given in Table 4, 100% of the
partners knew of the HIV-positive status of their wives, the information given in
Table 2 is different.
4. Husbands’ perspective of ‘sexual deprivation’ is lacking as the interviews were
solely with the women. This can be mentioned as a limitation.
5. It is also possible that some of the HIV-positive women themselves might have
voluntarily declined to have sex with their husbands. It is not clear whether this
aspect was examined and if there are relevant data on the same, it can be
included.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Family disruption and sexual deprivation among married HIV positive
women in Osogbo, southwest Nigeria: role of inappropriate disclosure
Version:2Date:19 September 2014
Reviewer: Sharon Licqurish
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory revisions:
The authors' assertion (beginning line 158) "feeling of being neglected and desire
for children could result in these women seeking sexual gratification outside
marriage with the risk of contracting other sexually transmitted infections while
putting such new sexual partners to the risk of acquiring HIV infection." is not
supported by their study or previous research. I suggest that this assumption is
not supported and therefore they should reconsider this statement.
Minor Essential Revisions
The writing was mostly acceptable, however, numerous grammatical errors were
evident, i.e:
line 44 - "questionnaire on sexual experiences" change to "questionnaire about
sexual experiences"
line 50 - change "at sexual intercourse" to 'during sexual intercourse'
Line 52 - change 'adduced' to 'attributed to'
Line 54 - chage HCT to the term in full with HCT in brackets.
Line 55 - change 'individuals' to 'women' as this was your population.
Background
Line 72 - Use of acronyms - write in full 1st time with acronym in (..)
Line 82 - change 'injection' to 'injecting'
Line 91-93 - sentence needs punctuation
Line 91-93 - Sentence needs grammatical editing and clarification. i.e what is
meant by the term 'consults'
Line 93 - remove 'the' before HCT
Line 95 - change to HIV positive cases from 'been' to 'being'
There are many other instances of similar grammatical errors throughout the
paper, which I have not detailed. I recommend further detailed editing prior to
publication.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Fertility desires and unmet need for family planning among HIV infected
individuals in two HIV clinics with differing models of family planning service
delivery
Version:4Date:13 October 2014
Reviewer: Lisa Nguyen
Reviewer's report:
Discretionary Revisions
1) Was the structured interview conducted in a private setting?
2) In regards to the data, how many unmarried women reported having had sex
in the past 1 month?
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
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