Dear Dr Smith,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript entitled "Universal third trimester ultrasonic screening using fetal macrosomia in the prediction of adverse perinatal outcome, a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy." for consideration by PLOS Medicine.

Your manuscript has now been evaluated by the PLOS Medicine editorial staff [as well as by an academic editor with relevant expertise] and I am writing to let you know that we would like to send your submission out for external peer review.

However, before we can send your manuscript to reviewers, we need you to complete your submission by providing the metadata that is required for full assessment. To this end, please login to Editorial Manager where you will find the paper in the 'Submissions Needing Revisions' folder on your homepage. Please click 'Revise Submission' from the Action Links and complete all additional questions in the submission questionnaire.

Please re-submit your manuscript within two working days, i.e. by .

Login to Editorial Manager here: https://www.editorialmanager.com/pmedicine

Once your full submission is complete, your paper will undergo a series of checks in preparation for peer review. Once your manuscript has passed all checks it will be sent out for review.

**Please be aware that, due to the voluntary nature of our reviewers and academic editors, manuscript assessment may be subject to delays during the holiday season. Thank you for your patience.**

Feel free to email us at plosmedicine@plos.org if you have any queries relating to your submission.

Kind regards,

Helen Howard, for Clare Stone PhD

Acting Editor-in-Chief

PLOS Medicine

plosmedicine.org

Dear Gordon,

Thank you very much for submitting your manuscript "Universal third trimester ultrasonic screening using fetal macrosomia in the prediction of adverse perinatal outcome, a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy." (PMEDICINE-D-20-00081R1) for consideration at PLOS Medicine. Please accept my sincere apologies for the unusual delay in getting back to you about it. One of the reviewers was very late submitting.

Your paper was evaluated by a senior editor and discussed among all the editors here. It was also discussed with an academic editor with relevant expertise, and sent to independent reviewers, including a statistical reviewer. The reviews are appended at the bottom of this email and any accompanying reviewer attachments can be seen via the link below:

[LINK]

In light of these reviews, I am afraid that we will not be able to accept the manuscript for publication in the journal in its current form, but we would like to consider a revised version that addresses the reviewers' and editors' comments. Obviously we cannot make any decision about publication until we have seen the revised manuscript and your response, and we plan to seek re-review by one or more of the reviewers.

In revising the manuscript for further consideration, your revisions should address the specific points made by each reviewer and the editors. Please also check the guidelines for revised papers at http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/revising-your-manuscript for any that apply to your paper. In your rebuttal letter you should indicate your response to the reviewers' and editors' comments, the changes you have made in the manuscript, and include either an excerpt of the revised text or the location (eg: page and line number) where each change can be found. Please submit a clean version of the paper as the main article file; a version with changes marked should be uploaded as a marked up manuscript.

In addition, we request that you upload any figures associated with your paper as individual TIF or EPS files with 300dpi resolution at resubmission; please read our figure guidelines for more information on our requirements: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/figures. While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the PACE digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at PLOSMedicine@plos.org.

We expect to receive your revised manuscript by Apr 30 2020 11:59PM. Please email us (plosmedicine@plos.org) if you have any questions or concerns.

***Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.***

We ask every co-author listed on the manuscript to fill in a contributing author statement, making sure to declare all competing interests. If any of the co-authors have not filled in the statement, we will remind them to do so when the paper is revised. If all statements are not completed in a timely fashion this could hold up the re-review process. If new competing interests are declared later in the revision process, this may also hold up the submission. Should there be a problem getting one of your co-authors to fill in a statement we will be in contact. YOU MUST NOT ADD OR REMOVE AUTHORS UNLESS YOU HAVE ALERTED THE EDITOR HANDLING THE MANUSCRIPT TO THE CHANGE AND THEY SPECIFICALLY HAVE AGREED TO IT. You can see our competing interests policy here: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/competing-interests.

Please use the following link to submit the revised manuscript:

https://www.editorialmanager.com/pmedicine/

Your article can be found in the "Submissions Needing Revision" folder.

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/submission-guidelines#loc-methods.

Please ensure that the paper adheres to the PLOS Data Availability Policy (see http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/data-availability), which requires that all data underlying the study's findings be provided in a repository or as Supporting Information. For data residing with a third party, authors are required to provide instructions with contact information for obtaining the data. PLOS journals do not allow statements supported by "data not shown" or "unpublished results." For such statements, authors must provide supporting data or cite public sources that include it.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Sincerely,

Clare Stone, PhD

Managing Editor

PLOS Medicine

plosmedicine.org

-----------------------------------------------------------

Requests from the editors:

Title – Please insert a colon before the study descriptor in Universal third trimester ultrasonic screening using fetal macrosomia in the prediction of adverse perinatal outcome, a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy.

Abstract – please use p values, where possible, where 95%Cis are used (also elsewhere, as needed) and please add a sentence on the study’s limitations as the final sentence of the abstract

Thank you for providing the PRISMA checklist – please use sections and paragraphs instead of page numbers as these can change on formatting and revision.

Comments from the reviewers:

Reviewer #1: The study question (3rd trimester US screening for macrosomia) is a well-known, but not evidence based answered one. It is an important problem to the community of clinical obstetricians in the high- and middle-income countries.

The design and the mothodology of the study is well organized. The results are clearly written and the consequnezes for the day-to-day work of obstetrical clinicians and for future scientific study questions are mentioned.

The manuscript can be published without revision, may I ask for correction of some typing errors (like in the short running title marcosomia - macrosomia!).

Reviewer #2: See attachment

Michael Dewey

Reviewer #3: Overall: a well written paper: clear and concise, easy to read, clinically relevant.

Abstract: In the abstract there is a reference to ultrasound screening and breech. Why, this is not incorporated in the introduction, nor is a reference given. Seems a bit out of place.

The aim is clear and well defined. Moreover, the authors address an important clinical problem: can shoulder dystocia be predicted?.

I have only one concern. I miss information on the inclusion of just abstracts (i.e. non-peer reviewed studies) in this systematic review and meta-analysis (since the abstract of Galvin 2017 is included) . Did the authors check if study protocols were published in a registry or were authors contacted in order to assess the risk of bias? If authors are unable to share their protocol, their study should not included. Please add.

Any attachments provided with reviews can be seen via the following link:

[LINK]

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: moraitis.pdf

Dear Dr. Smith,

Thank you very much for re-submitting your manuscript "Universal third trimester ultrasonic screening using fetal macrosomia in the prediction of adverse perinatal outcome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy." (PMEDICINE-D-20-00081R2) for review by PLOS Medicine.

I have discussed the paper with my colleagues and the academic editor and it was also seen again by xxx reviewers. I am pleased to say that provided the remaining editorial and production issues are dealt with we are planning to accept the paper for publication in the journal.

The remaining issues that need to be addressed are listed at the end of this email. Any accompanying reviewer attachments can be seen via the link below. Please take these into account before resubmitting your manuscript:

[LINK]

Our publications team (plosmedicine@plos.org) will be in touch shortly about the production requirements for your paper, and the link and deadline for resubmission. DO NOT RESUBMIT BEFORE YOU'VE RECEIVED THE PRODUCTION REQUIREMENTS.

***Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.***

In revising the manuscript for further consideration here, please ensure you address the specific points made by each reviewer and the editors. In your rebuttal letter you should indicate your response to the reviewers' and editors' comments and the changes you have made in the manuscript. Please submit a clean version of the paper as the main article file. A version with changes marked must also be uploaded as a marked up manuscript file.

Please also check the guidelines for revised papers at http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/revising-your-manuscript for any that apply to your paper. If you haven't already, we ask that you provide a short, non-technical Author Summary of your research to make findings accessible to a wide audience that includes both scientists and non-scientists. The Author Summary should immediately follow the Abstract in your revised manuscript. This text is subject to editorial change and should be distinct from the scientific abstract.

We expect to receive your revised manuscript within 1 week. Please email us (plosmedicine@plos.org) if you have any questions or concerns.

We ask every co-author listed on the manuscript to fill in a contributing author statement. If any of the co-authors have not filled in the statement, we will remind them to do so when the paper is revised. If all statements are not completed in a timely fashion this could hold up the re-review process. Should there be a problem getting one of your co-authors to fill in a statement we will be in contact. YOU MUST NOT ADD OR REMOVE AUTHORS UNLESS YOU HAVE ALERTED THE EDITOR HANDLING THE MANUSCRIPT TO THE CHANGE AND THEY SPECIFICALLY HAVE AGREED TO IT.

Please ensure that the paper adheres to the PLOS Data Availability Policy (see http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/data-availability), which requires that all data underlying the study's findings be provided in a repository or as Supporting Information. For data residing with a third party, authors are required to provide instructions with contact information for obtaining the data. PLOS journals do not allow statements supported by "data not shown" or "unpublished results." For such statements, authors must provide supporting data or cite public sources that include it.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact me or the journal staff on plosmedicine@plos.org.

We look forward to receiving the revised manuscript by Jun 03 2020 11:59PM.

Sincerely,

Adya Misra, PhD

Senior Editor

PLOS Medicine

plosmedicine.org

------------------------------------------------------------

Requests from Editors:

Please update your literature search to the end of April to ensure no recent publications have been missed.

Abstract

Please add a sentence, say, to the abstract to summarize the included studies - for example, quoting the range of study dates and categories of study design (e.g., X RCTs, Y cohort studies ...).

Please add a new final sentence to the "methods and findings" subsection of your abstract, to quote 2-3 of the study's main limitations.

In your abstract and throughout the paper, please add p values alongside 95% CI, where available

Author summary

Please rephrase level 1 evidence here as it may not be accessible to all readers. You may wish to include this as a second bullet point

Please rephrase lines 90-96 using more accessible language

Please break the first subsection of the "author summary" down into 2-3 individual points.

Introduction

Please can you add a space between text and reference brackets

References

Please format the bibliography in Vancouver style

Competing Interests- please add a sentence to note GS is an Academic Editor at PLOS Medicine

At line 70, please begin the sentence, "In this study, we found that ..." or similar.

Please refer to the attached PRISMA checklist in the methods section of your main text.

To the discussion section of your main text, please add a concise discussion of study strengths and limitations.

Please remove the funding and competing interest information from the end of the text (this will appear in the metadata in the event of publication, via the submission form).

Please avoid "P=0.000" in the figures.

Comments from Reviewers:

Reviewer #1: The revised paper is ready for publication.

Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed my points.

Michael Dewey

Any attachments provided with reviews can be seen via the following link:

[LINK]

Dear Prof. Smith,

On behalf of my colleagues and the academic editor, Dr. Eva Pajkrt, I am delighted to inform you that your manuscript entitled "Universal third trimester ultrasonic screening using fetal macrosomia in the prediction of adverse perinatal outcome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy." (PMEDICINE-D-20-00081R3) has been accepted for publication in PLOS Medicine.

PRODUCTION PROCESS

Before publication you will see the copyedited word document (in around 1-2 weeks from now) and a PDF galley proof shortly after that. The copyeditor will be in touch shortly before sending you the copyedited Word document. We will make some revisions at the copyediting stage to conform to our general style, and for clarification. When you receive this version you should check and revise it very carefully, including figures, tables, references, and supporting information, because corrections at the next stage (proofs) will be strictly limited to (1) errors in author names or affiliations, (2) errors of scientific fact that would cause misunderstandings to readers, and (3) printer's (introduced) errors.

If you are likely to be away when either this document or the proof is sent, please ensure we have contact information of a second person, as we will need you to respond quickly at each point.

PRESS

A selection of our articles each week are press released by the journal. You will be contacted nearer the time if we are press releasing your article in order to approve the content and check the contact information for journalists is correct. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper at this point, to enable them to help maximize its impact.

PROFILE INFORMATION

Now that your manuscript has been accepted, please log into EM and update your profile. Go to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pmedicine, log in, and click on the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page. Please update your user information to ensure an efficient production and billing process.

Thank you again for submitting the manuscript to PLOS Medicine. We look forward to publishing it.

Best wishes,

Adya Misra, PhD

Senior Editor

PLOS Medicine

plosmedicine.org