Title: Assessment of Breast Cancer Risk Among Iraqi Women in 2019
Version: 1 Date: 13 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
Specific comments
Title
Authors did not study only five years risk but included lifetime risk. The title, I suppose should
capture all.  For instance, it can read  ”Assessment of breast cancer risk….”
Abstract
1. The abstract is not well structured.  Authors should kindly follow BMC author’s guide.
Abstract should include background, methods, results, and conclusions
2. Authors should write aims under background
3.  The last sentence in the conclusion sounds more like a recommendation.  Nothing on
mammography was conducted in the study.  Authors should kindly remove this sentence from
the abstract.
4. Authors need to add more to the methods section of the abstract.  Why was 1.66%  used
as cutoff to determine high risk? Please add more information on the tool used (BCRAT) and
probably the developer. There is need to add some sentences also on the statistical analysis
employed.
5. Authors can add standard deviations with the means in the result session
6. Please add to the result session some findings on the prediction of governorate with highest
risk which was mention as one of the study’s aim
7. The conclusion that “5 year risk of BC among Iraqi women is higher in 2019 higher than
other part of the world” should be removed please as the study’s objectives did not state it will
compare the risk in Iraq with other part of the world
8. The word limit allowed is 350 maximum. Authors can add to the abstract
Background
1. Authors need to review their English language. There were lots of grammatical errors, an in
appropriate use of punctuations.  For instance, under introduction, line 4: “breast cancer is the
first cancer that is common”. Line 11. “Many factors are determined” –These sentences are not
clear. Authors should try and rephrase.
2. Line 13. I am not aware of any BARSA 1 or  2 gene. Probably Authors meant BRCA 1 &2.
3. Authors should add the study objectives or aims in this section
Materials and methods
1. This section should also be arranged accordingly using the journals authors guide
2. Please kindly provide information on the current population in Iraq
3. Authors cannot conclude participants did not have BRCA 1 and 2  gene without a genetic test
being conducted.  Authors should rephrase the sentence “All the women were taken as without
mutation variable….”
4.  I do think a purposive sampling was conducted and not a multistage – Multistage means
sampling in stages and it seems sampling was not conducted at the initial stage since all Iraqi
cities were included.
5. Authors need to describe how participants were selected in each governorates.
6. Reliability test described is not well understood. Authors should kindly rephrase the sentence.
Do the authors mean the pre-post interviews for the reliability test were conducted for all 73
women at five years interval?
Results
1. Do the authors mean socio-demographic date or data? I would caption this title as
“characteristics of study participants” because the variables in the table includes some
characteristics that are not socio-demographics
2. Authors should rephrase the meaning of the first characteristics/variable on the table  “Are
your patients relatives” Meaning?
3. The manuscript has lots of tables.  Authors should please reduce the tables. Table 3 and 4 can
be merged together or written in prose. Tables 6&7 are not necessary.  I believe valid percent
and cumulative percent on tables 1—4 are  also not necessary. Instead, Authors should provide
p values of the correlations between the variables and the risk scores (5 year and lifetime ) gotten
from the  linear regression or multiple linear regression models, in those columns
Discussion
1. Discussion is too short. Authors need to compare findings from their work with previous work
conducted
References
1. Authors did not adhere to the use of Vancouver style.
References style used is not consistent
List of abbreviations
1.  BRCA should be included