PONE-D-20-12131

Association of Macular Choroidal Thickness with Optical Coherent Tomography Morphology in Patients with Idiopathic Epiretinal Membrane

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. I-Mo Fang,

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PLOS ONE

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2011.07.002.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Authors studies the epiretinal membrane and the association with choroidal thickness. They staged the ERM based on the features and compared before and after surgery to peel ERM and showed significant decrease on choroidal thickness. The findings are not novel, and the study had been repeated previously in multiple formats.

Major:

1. Anatomical speaking the fovea is 1.5mm in diameter while foveal avascular zone is only 0.5mm. Therefore, the notion that fovea receives 100% of its blood supply from choroidal is not correct.

2. The hypothesis that the fovea is vascularized by choroid therefore the epiretinal membrane should have choroidal changes is counterintuitive. The vice versa would be more relevant.

3. There are multiple reports on choroidal changes in ERM and novelty of the work is minimal. PMID: 31671195, PMID: 30467423, PMID: 26338821, PMID: 31139433, PMID: 28245442.

4. Only figure 1A was showing the EDI images and the rest are very poor quality.

Figures:

1. Figure 1. Poor scan quality with no visible choroidal structure in B and C, questioning the EDI mode of the scan.

2. Figure 3. Again, very poor contrast of the images makes it hard to evaluate choroidal thickness analysis.

Reviewer #2: It would be nice if the visual acuity before and after surgery would have reported and if the change of choirdal thickness correlates to the vision improvement

The study is well designed, the statistical work up is correct and literature review is good

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Association of Macular Choroidal Thickness with Optical Coherent Tomography Morphology in Patients with Idiopathic Epiretinal Membrane

PONE-D-20-12131R1

Dear Dr. I-Mo Fang,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Alon Harris

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: The authors had made proper revision in text and figures. They addressed my concerns in the revision.

Reviewer #2: The authors in their response addressed explained and discussed well all the remarks of all reviewers

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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: Yes: Amir Hajrasouliha

Reviewer #2: No