PONE-D-19-32289

Remote ischemic preconditioning does not influence lectin pathway protein levels in head and neck cancer patients undergoing surgery

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hvas,

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3. We noticed you have some minor occurrence(s) of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed:

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219496

https://doi.org/10.1111/aji.13092

https://doi.org/10.1111/sji.12680

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: I appreciate the opportunity to review your revised manuscript. The topic is of Novelty and of clinical importance. （P refers to page, L referes to line, for examole,P10L191-196 refers to Page 10 line 191-196）.

P10L191-196, “The outcomes were: 1) ……”. In clinical trial, there are primary outcome and with or without secondly outcomes, the primary outcome is usually the most interested outcome and relative to sample calculation. Therefore, I would suggest pointing out which outcome was primary outcome.

P10L199-200, “A sample size calculation was conducted for the study on hemostasis[32], which defined the number of participants in the present study ”. It seems that the sample size was calculated the same as the article mentioned. But I read the article mentioned , and find the sentence，“The sample size was calculated with collagen-induced platelet aggregation (COL test，Roche Diagnostics) on the first postoperative day as primary endpoint”，since the outcomes were totally not the same in the two trial, I don’t think the sample size calculation could be the same. So, to make it clere that how sample size was calculated would be more appropriate.

Reviewer #2: Interesting paper dealing with "Remote ischemic preconditioning" and lectin pathway protein levels in

head and neck cancer patients undergoing surgery.

While it is a good idea to use ischemic preconditioning in these patients no effects were observed.

Might be due to heterogeneous patients or small patient number though. The authors should emphasize this a bit more in the introduction and discussion section.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Remote ischemic preconditioning does not influence lectin pathway protein levels in head and neck cancer patients undergoing surgery

PONE-D-19-32289R1

Dear Dr. Hvas,

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,

Ivan R. Nabi, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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