Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Human papillomavirus infection rate, distribution characteristics, and risk
of age in pre- and postmenopausal women
Version: 
1 
Date: 
02 Jan 2021
Reviewer's report:
The authors are reporting about distribution of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV)
among pre- and postmenopausal women. They concluded that infection rate of
high-risk HPV increases after 65 years of age; hence the cutoff screening age
should be appropriately prolonged. 
I find that the abstract has a several flaws and authors should consider rewriting
this section. Also, other parts of the manuscript should be expanded with a few
details. 
I've outlined some suggestions below.
1. The Abstract is confusing and does not let readers to quickly get the essence
of paper. 
Especially problematic are sections Results and Conclusion. 
The
authors should present more precisely the data related to pre-and post-
menopausal women. Also, it is not clear which results are statistically significant
and which are not. 
Results related to the infection rate of HPV in patients with
lower genital tract inflammation are not essential to the conclusion, and do not
have to be shown in the abstract.
2. As for the other parts of the manuscript, in Methods section, please provide
additional information about the participant recruitment method. Please ensure
that you have provided sufficient details to replicate the analyses such as:
a) statement as whether your sample can be considered representative of a larger
population, and
b) description of how participants were recruited
3. In section Results, please consider the following details:
a) Graphs 2 and 3 are confusing. I suggest to authors to replace current Figure 2
and 3 with a Table. The new Table should contain the data about high-risk HPV
types among pre- and post-menopausal women, which would clear present
individual percentage of each HR HPV types and total rate of HR HPV infection
between tested groups of women.
b) In line 7 (section Results): Did the authors meant to say: "The distribution of
HPV types before and after menopause is shown in Figure 1"?
c) Authors showed that "rate of HPV infection was significantly higher (1.911
times higher) in women with inflammation than in those without inflammation
(p=0.000; Table 1)". How much is rate of HPV infection in pre- and post-
menopausal women, according to 
inflammation/without inflammation ratio of
lower genital tract? Please, add additional data and make a correction in Table 1.
d) Please provide the numerical p-values in Table 2 to support your statements in
lines 44 and 45 (Results, part 3.3). Also, I suggest that together with count of
HPV positive sample 
(n=) to be included 
percentage(%) in the same table.
e) I suggest the word "subtypes" to be replaced with word "types" in the text.
HPV types and subtypes constitute different taxonomical entities.
4. The manuscript requires technical and grammatical editing.
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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