JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Title: Different clinical parameters inform Epicardial Fat Thickness in pre- and post-menopausal
Women with Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Version: 3 Date: 01 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
The study sets a specific objective, uses the appropriate methodology to achieve it, and all of
this is clearly stated in the manuscript.
The discussion addresses the most important results and also the limitations of the study
The role of epicardial fat is of great relevance. Echocardiographic measurement of epicardial
fat thickness has advantages as a high cardiometabolic risk index, including low cost, easy
accessibility, and good reproducibility. This work presents concrete and well-exposed results on
this aspect, taking into account that vascular risk is an important factor in patients with OSA and
is related to many factors, such as obesity, metabolic syndrome and menopause (all included
in this study)
Title: Different clinical parameters inform Epicardial Fat Thickness in pre- and post-menopausal
Women with Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Version: 3 Date: 08 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
Authors investigated the relationship between OSA parameters and EFT in women according to
menopausal status. Authors showed that EFT was significantly correlated with OSA parameters,
with some differences according to menopausal status. Although authors discussed an interesting
topic, I have some concerns in this study, especially in methodology. My comments are as
follows.
Major comments
1. Authors said that they investigated the relationship between EFT and menopausal status in
women with OSA; however, to be exact, I think not menopausal status but OSA parameters such
as AHI or ODI or T90 was examined, according to menopausal status. The current title or text
would need some amendments.
2. What is the clinical meaning of EFT? Is EFT associated with poor prognosis? This is not
described in the Introduction section; therefore, it is vague that why the investigation of the
relationship between OSA and EFT is important.
3. Why did authors exclude the subjects without OSA? The results of the relationship between
EFT and OSA parameters in subjects without OSA would be helpful for understanding the
relationship between EFT and OSA.
4. When was echocardiography performed? In addition, who performed echocardiography? If
multiple engineers performed it, the results might vary widely. If so, showing the data on the
concordance rate is preferable.
5. Which stepwise method was used? Forward, backward, or forward-backward? In addition,
there was no information which factors were selected in this multiple stepwise linear regression
analysis. This information is important.
Minor comments
1. In Methods, authors said, “All subjects were enrolled before receiving written informed
consent.” Is this correct?
2. Authors showed the relationship between EFT and OSA parameters. Adding the scatter chart
is preferable.
3. Figure legends of Figure 1 and 2 is reversed.
4. Please show the definitions of hypertension, diabetes, smoking frequency, and alcohol
frequency in Table 1.
5. Although the abbreviation of NS is shown, it is not used in Table 1.
Title: Different clinical parameters inform Epicardial Fat Thickness in pre- and post-menopausal
Women with Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Version: 4 Date: 26 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
In its first version it already seemed to me that the manuscript clearly stated an objective, used
the appropriate methods to reach that objective, and the information obtained was clearly stated.
In this second version, the authors have responded forcefully and exhaustively to the comments
of reviewers 2 and 3. The manuscript now includes all the questions that have been raised.
Title: Different clinical parameters inform Epicardial Fat Thickness in pre- and post-menopausal
Women with Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Version: 4 Date: 27 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
The authors have revised the manuscript according to Reviewers' comments and improved the
presentation of their study.
I would suggest adding some further comments.
1. I do not clearly see the aims of the study. Moreover, could the authors the sentences in lines
71-73 and 74-83 to the Methods and Discusion section accordingly? Instead please provide the
Background of the present study and not its Results.
2. It would more appropriate to have the following title: "The Relationship between Epicardial
Fat Thickness and Obstructive Sleep Apnea in pre- and post-menopausal Women."
3. Please replace Correspondance with Correspondence in the Title Page of the manuscript.
4. Please also avoid giving some many details regarding the statistical analysis of the stduy in the
Abstract. Moreover please improve the syntax of the language: For instance: "A total of 23...",
instead of "23 and 59 patients were enrolled in Group 1 and Group 2 respectively."
5. Lines 223 and 224: Please correct "in OSA-diagnosed women with defined menopause status"
with "in OSA-diagnosed women according to menopause status"
6. Please provide the abbreviations once in the abstract and in the main text and avoid using
them many times.
7.  Lines 224 and 225: Please replace this: "We found that EFT was higher in post/late peri-
menopausal women, and AHI and BMI were the independent predictors of EFT" with "We
found that EFT was higher in post/late peri-menopausal women, and AHI and BMI were the
independent predictors of EFT in this group of patients."
8. Please avoid making such strong assumptions: Therefore, EFT seems to be a valuable
parameter in the evaluation of OSA severity in women but not in men.
9. "On the other hand, Cetin et al. showed that Continuous Positive Airway Pressure therapy
(CPAP) which uses a machine to help a person with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) breathe more
easily is able to reduce EFT." Please avoid providing the definitions of OSA and its treatment
so late in the article. Either present it in the Introduction or erase it at all.
Title: Different clinical parameters inform Epicardial Fat Thickness in pre- and post-menopausal
Women with Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Version: 4 Date: 30 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript entitled “The Relationship between Epicardial Fat Thickness and different
clinical parameters in pre- and post-menopausal Women with Obstructive Sleep Apnea” was
well revised according to the reviewers’ comments. I have a few comments in the revised form.
1. In the second comments for the original manuscript, I asked what the clinical meaning of EFT
is (e.g. is EFT associated with cardiovascular disease or poor prognosis?). In the revised form,
only the association between EFT and OSA was mentioned.
2. I think the text in lines 71-83 would be incorrectly inserted.
Title: Different clinical parameters inform Epicardial Fat Thickness in pre- and post-menopausal
Women with Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Version: 6 Date: 17 May 2021
Reviewer's report:
I would like to thank the authors as they have well and scientifically responded to all the
comments raised by me and the other reviewers. My only suggestion is to improve the
manuscript and thus a minor comment is addressed to the final title of the manuscript.
Specifically, although I partly agree with the authors' suggestion to keep their proposed title,
a more concise title would make the article more appealing to the potential readers. The
part of "different clinical parameters" of "The Relationship between Epicardial Fat Thickness
and different clinical parameters in pre- and post-menopausal Women with Obstructive Sleep
Apnea" is somehow general. Thus, a more specific title would be more appreciated.
Reviewer’s report
Title: 
CCDC114, DNAI2 and TOP2A  involves in the effects of Tibolone
treatment on postmenopausal endometrium
Version: 
0 
Date: 
15 Jan 2020
Reviewer: 
Nitish Beharee
Reviewer's report:
Despite it is a very interesting study, however, I am of the opinion that the study
is not adequate. Furthermore the issue raised is not, in my opinion, a major
priority in the concerned field. Thank you.
Are the methods appropriate and well described?
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.
No
Does the work include the necessary controls?
If not, please specify which controls are required in your comments to the
authors.
No
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the data shown?
If not, please explain in your comments to the authors.
Unable to assess
Are you able to assess any statistics in the manuscript or would you
recommend an additional statistical review?
If an additional statistical review is recommended, please specify what aspects
require further assessment in your comments to the editors.
I am able to assess the statistics
Quality of written English
Please indicate the quality of language in the manuscript:
Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following
questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I declare that I have no competing interests
I agree to the open peer review policy of the journal. I understand that my name
will be included on my report to the authors and, if the manuscript is accepted
for publication, my named report including any attachments I upload will be
posted on the website along with the authors' responses. I agree for my report to
be made available under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY license
(
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
). I understand that any comments
which I do not wish to be included in my named report can be included as
confidential comments to the editors, which will not be published.
I agree to the open peer review policy of the journal
Reviewer’s report
Title: 
CCDC114, DNAI2 and TOP2A  involves in the effects of Tibolone
treatment on postmenopausal endometrium
Version: 
0 
Date: 
18 Jan 2020
Reviewer: 
Ahmed Mohamed Abbas Sobh
Reviewer's report:
Please include all comments for the authors in this box rather than uploading
your report as an attachment. Please only upload as attachments annotated
versions of manuscripts, graphs, supporting materials or other aspects of your
report which cannot be included in a text format.
Please overwrite this text when adding your comments to the authors.
Are the methods appropriate and well described?
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.
Yes
Does the work include the necessary controls?
If not, please specify which controls are required in your comments to the
authors.
Yes
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the data shown?
If not, please explain in your comments to the authors.
Yes
Are you able to assess any statistics in the manuscript or would you
recommend an additional statistical review?
If an additional statistical review is recommended, please specify what aspects
require further assessment in your comments to the editors.
Not relevant to this manuscript
Quality of written English
Please indicate the quality of language in the manuscript:
Acceptable
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following
questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
I agree to the open peer review policy of the journal. I understand that my name
will be included on my report to the authors and, if the manuscript is accepted
for publication, my named report including any attachments I upload will be
posted on the website along with the authors' responses. I agree for my report to
be made available under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY license
(
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
). I understand that any comments
which I do not wish to be included in my named report can be included as
confidential comments to the editors, which will not be published.
I agree to the open peer review policy of the journal
Title: Fractional CO2 laser treatment effect on cervicovaginal lavage zinc and copper levels:
a prospective cohort study
Version: 1 Date: 13 Mar 2021
Reviewer's report:
The most important problem of this study is the small number of participants and the lack of a
control group. All statistical data are rounded up to unit. They should be rounded up to at least
the 2nd decimal unit. It would be ideal to attach to the study as a supplementary data a table with
all patients characteristics that you reported in the text (age, score and zinc and copper levels
during treatments,  VAS Score, etc....), given the low number of partecipants to the study.
Thank You
Title: Fractional CO2 laser treatment effect on cervicovaginal lavage zinc and copper levels:
a prospective cohort study
Version: 1 Date: 28 Mar 2021
Reviewer's report:
I read with great interest the manuscript, which falls within the aim of this Journal. In my honest
opinion, the topic is interesting enough to attract the readers’ attention. Nevertheless, authors
should clarify some points and improve the discussion, as suggested below.
Authors should consider the following recommendations:
- Manuscript should be further revised in order to correct some typos and improve style.
- Do the authors think that fractional CO2 laser treatment may have a role to revert the effects
of radiotherapy for cervical and vulvaer cancer treatment (refer to: PMID: 31818165; PMID:
31320484)?
Title: Urinary dysfunction in women following total mesorectal excision vs. partial mesorectal
excision for treatment of rectal cancer
Version: 1 Date: 03 Mar 2021
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors, although the subject of your article is very interesting, and may contribute towards
more shared decision making in treatment strategies, there are some flaws that have to be
adressed.
Because we have no pre-treatment scores, you should consider adding a healthy control group,
age and ASA comparable. This would clarify whether surgery with or without neoadjuvant
radiotherapy, has impact on urogenital functional outcome. Also, please clarify what the
individual scores of the questionnaires mean; is a high score good or bad?
Some questions arise on the type of surgery. For instance, did you revise all MRI's? And did
you take into account the new definition of the sigmoid take-off?
Is there any reporting on the quality of the specimens? Did you notice any difference between
both groups? Was there a difference in CRM and possible positive resection margins?
Finally, how did you determine the level of anastomosis? Was any kind of postoperative
endoscopy performed, in order to measure the distance from the anal verge?
Yours sincerely,
Title: Urinary dysfunction in women following total mesorectal excision vs. partial mesorectal
excision for treatment of rectal cancer
Version: 1 Date: 21 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
Excellent work on a topic with scarce data in the literature.
Abstract
Radiotherapy information should be included in the abstract (methods, results, discussion) as
it is an important factor for postoperative outcomes and it is very relevant that even with RT,
TME group presents wit similar scores in the study. Also add it in the conclusion.
Introduction
• While during resection of proximal tumors, advanced dissection of the pelvic region is avoided,
more distal tumors, including those with rectal involvement, require a lower resection. Do you
mean those with mesorectal involvement on the second case?
• More recent data has pointed towards the possibility of utilizing a less radical approach
according to tumor location. Please, add ¨that is PME¨, or similar, as it is not clear enough when
reading.
• Functional outcomes in males may be more studied and data is scarcer for females. Please, add
this to the argument on why you concentrate only in women (you do mention it in the discussion).
Methods
• How do you know when TME vs PME is done? By surgeons description on the surgery report?
By MRI? By digital exam? Please add.
• Were they open or laparoscopic resections? Please add.
• What dose of radiation is usually applied by your hospital protocol? Please add.
• This is a retrospective study. Do you think there is a memory bias as the questionnaires are
done over the phone? Is the data collected from that actual moment when the questionnaire is
asked or for example, you asked the patient how they were 1, 3, 6 or 12 months after the surgery?
Please, add.
Results
• Page 9: What is the average follow-up? Or do you have a mean time from surgery? Please, add
• Have you performed a sub-analysis of the patients with radiotherapy matched with the PME
group? To confirm your conclusions about the radiotherapy effect, as other publications suggest
that radiotherapy affects the urinary outcomes. Please, add
Table 1
Remove FHR from the note at the bottom of the table or spelled it out and add it to the table
Table 2
Complication rate describe, is it intraoperative or postoperative? If it is intra, please describe
postoperative complications.
Table 1 and 2
% in the number of patients refers to the total; but the rest of percentages in the rest of items is
relative to each group (TME or PME), which may be confusing. Please correct by placing the
total number in the table´s heading (PME = 73 …) and/or explain it in the table.
Title: How do women living with HIV experience menopause? Menopausal symptoms, anxiety
and depression according to reproductive age in a multicenter cohort
Version: 1 Date: 20 Jan 2021
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper examining the prevalence of menopausal
symptoms and anxiety/depression according to menopausal status among women living with
HIV. It is well known that peri and postmenopausal women are more likely to experience
menopausal symptoms than premenopausal women. Apart from examining these associations
among women living with HIV, I don’t feel the results adding new knowledge to the literature.
Every woman would go through the menopausal transition regardless of HIV status, but some
may experience severe menopausal symptoms or early onset symptoms. What is less clear is
the factors associated with severe menopausal symptoms among women living with HIV. My
main comments are:
1. It would be much more important to examine the factors associated with the severity
of menopausal symptoms among HIV-infected women, adjusting for menopausal status. For
instance, whether HIV-positive women with drug use, poor social support, sexual relationship,
alcohol consumption, different treatments, poor clinical/immunological condition are more
likely to experience severe menopausal symptoms.
2. Table 1 shows the demographic and clinical characteristics according to menopausal
status, but the results and interpretation don’t make sense. For instance, authors found that
“premenopausal women were more likely to have been born in countries than Span compared
with peri- and postmenopausal women”. Every woman would go through different stages
of menopause, regardless of their demographic and clinical characteristics, unless examining
certain characteristics associated with early onset of menopause.
3. Around 5-10% of women experience earlier menopause before age 45 (defined as early
menopause). There is some evidence that women living with HIV may experience earlier
menopause and early onset symptoms than HIV-negative women. However, this study only
included women aged 45-60 years, which excluded those women with early menopause and
experiencing symptoms.
4. A large proportion of women living with HIV would have a history of anxiety and depression,
which is not considered as menopausal symptoms during the menopausal transition. It makes
more sense to consider anxiety and depression as a factor associated with menopausal symptoms,
adjusted for menopausal status. I would expect women with anxiety/depression are more likely
to report severe menopausal symptoms.
Title: How do women living with HIV experience menopause? Menopausal symptoms, anxiety
and depression according to reproductive age in a multicenter cohort
Version: 3 Date: 19 Mar 2021
Reviewer:  Shema Tariq
Reviewer's report:
Many thanks for the revisions - this paper has been improved.  I still think it would benefit from
a couple of sentences on what these data add to what is already known and the implications on
clinical practice - I do not agree with the authors that this is beyond the scope of their paper.  It
is important to consider how these data can be used to improve care.