Effectiveness of different central venous catheter fixation suture techniques: An in vitro crossover study

Manuel Florian Struck; Lars Friedrich; Stefan Schleifenbaum; Holger Kirsten; Wolfram Schummer; Bernd E. Winkler

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0222463

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 19, 2019
10 Jul 2019 Decision Letter - Raffaele Serra, Editor PONE-D-19-17335 Effectiveness of different central venous catheter fixation suture techniques: an in vitro crossover study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Struck, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. The article will be reconsidered if the authors will satisfactory address reviewers' concerns. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Aug 24 2019 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable 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/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). This letter should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'. 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 look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Prof. Raffaele Serra, M.D., Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): The article is novel and interesting. Please address reviewers' comments. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors present an in vitro study comparing the effects of four suturing techniques on maximum dislodgment forces in CVCs from three different manufacturers. The authors conclude that the „finger trap“ fixation needs the highest force to dislodge the CVC. * The methods section should be condensed. The first sentence (p 4, l 67) can be discarded since it just repeats the last sentence of the introduction. Most of the sub-headers can be removed. The information written in the paragraph for ‚test setting‘ can be mentioned in other parts of the methods. * The results state a lot of significances but it is not said what these significance stay for. Please, rather state the difference of the statistical significant findings (I.e. high or lower dislodgment rate). * Is Fig. 5 really important to understand the manuscript? It is only mentioned with one sentence in the results without explaining what this figure is telling us. Please, elaborate or discard. * The authors write in their conclusion that the combination of the techniques “clamp only” plus “finger trap” might be a reasonable alternative. Although it is reasonable to discuss this it should not be mentioned in the conclusion since this combination was not tested in the study. ## Minor comments * Protected names should be marked with a trademark sign * page 4, lines 61-64: in an in vitro study ‚aim‘ instead of ‚outcome‘ would be the more suitable term. * page 7, line 139: ratios are usually given as part of 1 instead of percentage. It is not clear what kind of ratio you mean (what is your reference of the ratio?) * Please, add number of measurements for each column as well as results of statistical tests in Table 1 ******** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Frank Bloos [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (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. Registration is free. 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 figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222463.r001
Revision 1
5 Aug 2019 Author Response Response to reviewers comments Reviewer #1: The authors present an in vitro study comparing the effects of four suturing techniques on maximum dislodgment forces in CVCs from three different manufacturers. The authors conclude that the „finger trap“ fixation needs the highest force to dislodge the CVC. * The methods section should be condensed. The first sentence (p 4, l 67) can be discarded since it just repeats the last sentence of the introduction. Most of the sub-headers can be removed. The information written in the paragraph for ‚test setting‘ can be mentioned in other parts of the methods. RESPONSE: We would like to thank the reviewer for his comments. We have changed all items as suggested. * The results state a lot of significances but it is not said what these significance stay for. Please, rather state the difference of the statistical significant findings (I.e. high or lower dislodgment rate). RESPONSE. We have completely rewritten this paragraph for clarity. The results section now provides detailed information which dislodgement forces were higher or lower, e.g. “finger trap” and “complete” also resulted in higher dislodgement forces than the “compression” technique. * Is Fig. 5 really important to understand the manuscript? It is only mentioned with one sentence in the results without explaining what this figure is telling us. Please, elaborate or discard. RESPONSE: We have added some more linking information regarding Fig. 5. From our point of view, Fig. 5 is essential for the manuscript because it presents the detailed dislodgement forces for all four fixation techniques and all three manufacturers. Utilizing Fig. 5, the reader can easily see that dislodgement forces are tremendously higher using the “finger trap” or “complete” approach compared to “clamp only” or “compression”. Thus, Fig. 5 helps to demonstrate the benefit of “finger-trap” based approaches at a glance. * The authors write in their conclusion that the combination of the techniques “clamp only” plus “finger trap” might be a reasonable alternative. Although it is reasonable to discuss this it should not be mentioned in the conclusion since this combination was not tested in the study. RESPONSE: We have removed this information from the conclusion part and provided it in the discussion part instead. ## Minor comments * Protected names should be marked with a trademark sign RESPONSE: We have provided all protected brand names either with ® or ™ signs due to the information provided by the manufacturers. Furthermore, we have added in the Methods section: “For the sake of simplicity, the terms “Arrow”, “B. Braun” and “Vygon” will be used consistently below.” * page 4, lines 61-64: in an in vitro study ‚aim‘ instead of ‚outcome‘ would be the more suitable term. RESPONSE: We have changed this term as suggested. * page 7, line 139: ratios are usually given as part of 1 instead of percentage. It is not clear what kind of ratio you mean (what is your reference of the ratio?) RESPONSE: We have changed this part as suggested. The information is now presented more precisely and percentages have been replaced by parts of 1. * Please, add number of measurements for each column as well as results of statistical tests in Table 1 RESPONSE: We have now provided the number of measurements for each columns and the statistical results in the legend of Table 1. We would like to thank the reviewer again for his constructive comments and hope that we have addressed all items appropriately. We have added another supplementary file including the raw data of our measurements (S1_Dataset) in order to comply with the Journals data sharing policy. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: CVC_Sutures_RESPONSE_05082019.doc https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222463.r002
30 Aug 2019 Decision Letter - Raffaele Serra, Editor [EXSCINDED] Effectiveness of different central venous catheter fixation suture techniques: an in vitro crossover study PONE-D-19-17335R1 Dear Dr. Struck, We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication. Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. With kind regards, Prof. Raffaele Serra, M.D., Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): amended manuscript is acceptable Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Frank Bloos https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222463.r003
Formally Accepted
5 Sep 2019 Acceptance Letter - Raffaele Serra, Editor PONE-D-19-17335R1 Effectiveness of different central venous catheter fixation suture techniques: an in vitro crossover study Dear Dr. Struck: I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. 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. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. For any other questions or concerns, please email plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE. With kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Prof. Raffaele Serra Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222463.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .