PONE-D-19-18628

Effects and cost-effectiveness of postoperative oral analgesics for additional postoperative pain relief in children and adolescents undergoing dental treatment: Health technology assessment including a systematic review

PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: N/A

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The preparation of Systematic review was erroneous.

Several lacunae were noted and authors should discuss with someone who has prepared SRs before, especially those who have worked with the Cochrane Collaboration.

Outcomes are not well defined and the PICO statement is incorrectly prepared.

Professional help should have been taken for preparation of Search Strategies.

Reviewer #2: Manuscript Number: PONE-D-19-18628

Title: Effects and cost-effectiveness of postoperative oral analgesics for additional postoperative pain relief in children and adolescents undergoing dental treatment: Health technology assessment including a systematic review

Submitted to:

PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Rafael Badenes

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Badenes Review PLOS ONE 3.docx

Effects and cost-effectiveness of postoperative oral analgesics for additional postoperative pain relief in children and adolescents undergoing dental treatment: Health technology assessment including a systematic review

PONE-D-19-18628R1

Dear Dr. Berlin,

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.

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With kind regards,

Federico Bilotta

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

PONE-D-19-18628R1

In this SR, the Authors conducted a systematic review (SR) and health technology assessment (HTA) of oral analgesics administered after dental treatment to prevent postoperative pain in children and adolescents aged 3-19 years.

A PICO-protocol was constructed and registered in PROSPERO (CRD42017075589). Searches were conducted in PubMed, Cochrane, Scopus, Cinahl, and EMBASE, November 2018. The researchers (reading in pairs) assessed identified studies independently, according to the defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, following the PRISMA-statement.

A total of 3,963 scientific papers were identified, whereof 216 read in full text. None met the inclusion criteria, leading to an empty SR. Ethical issues were identified related to the recognized knowledge gap in terms of challenges to conduct studies that are well-designed from methodological as well as ethical perspectives.

The Authors concluded that, there is no scientific support for the use or rejection of oral analgesics administered after dental treatment in order to prevent or reduce postoperative pain. Thus, no guidelines can be formulated on this issue based solely on scientific evidence. Well-designed studies on how to prevent pain from developing after dental treatment in children and adolescents is urgently needed.

The study is interesting and well conducted. The manuscript is well written and informative

Comments

Reviewer 1: No competing interests. Accept

Reviewer 2: The authors have satisfactorily responded to all my questions and made the necessary changes to the manuscript. Accept

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

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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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

Reviewer #2: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

Reviewer #2: 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)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Rafael Badenes