PONE-D-20-09858

HemoDownloader: Open source software utility to extract data from HemoCue HbA1c 501 devices in epidemiological studies of diabetes mellitus

PLOS ONE

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Academic Editor's Comment:

The paper does not describe any research and cannot be published as a Research Article.

Nevertheless, PLOSONE can publish another type of papers. This manuscript may be published as a type: new software and tools. For details see:

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: No

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: This manuscript shows good sound that there is a new way to get data from epidemiological studies only about HbA1c in diabetes melitus. The authors said that this software can be used for analysing thousand samples and it has been implemented in Uganda Research, but the total samples in Uganda research were 370 and it was cohort, which one is true, please explain more detail because the total samples are different. Data were transfered in excel form, this condition was rather difficult to analyse thousands (whole) data in research setting, did it need to integrate with other programme (application)?

I see the software just for transfering data that is in Hemocue and there is not special command in software for analysis. is it true? How did the software analyse 370 or thousand samples? please explain more to know the usefull of the software. How did this software identify the subjects (370 or thousand) if the research was cohort that need many times to perform? Did the author identify data one by one or separate with some instructions in software? The authors may show how data was grouped and analysed with this software (cohort and or cross sectional maybe), also show the benefit and minus of using this software, like in Uganda research that has been done.

The limitation of this software is only for epidemiological research, but may be the author can be improve this software in clinical setting.

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting article that describes the effort to create a software to export results in digital format from point of care device of HbA1c measurement. The development of this software was expected to help the researcher to improve data collection and management in epidemiological study of diabetes.

This study is supposed to be about software development to export stored data from Hemacue system and diabetes.

Critiques

1. The article is too basic discussing information that is more suitable for a software development article than for a research article. This is particularly true for the sections after introduction that describe the software and its practical use.

2. Beyond this much of the article appears to be a series of statements regarding the software and its benefit without presenting evidence to support the statements.

3. The article was written with unusual style in scientific paper in medicine or life science. As a scientific research, the article does not present any method and result to support the authors’ conclusions. Since this article was claimed as research article, the authors should explain the method of the study clearly.

4. Since diabetes is a major health problem, the information regarding diabetes is updated frequently by International Diabetes Federation and WHO. Therefore, the use of reference regarding the incidence and mortality rate of diabetes (line 30) from the report article published more than 5 years ago is not acceptable.

4. The Authors wrote “Epidemiological studies of diabetes mellitus are needed to monitor the spread of the disease and to investigate novel risk factors for its development” (line no.44). I think the use of phrase “the spread of the disease” is not appropriate with the context of diabetes since it is not a transmitted disease.

5. The sentence “Our partners and we recently carried out an epidemiological study on health effects of pesticide exposure among small-scale farmers in the semi-urban Wakiso District of Uganda” (line 49) is not relevant with this article.

6. The authors do not give any strong reason why the project is important. Since the device for measuring HbA1c are available from many companies, the project to provide a software from the only one device from certain company is not relevant if the aim is for epidemiological study.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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HemoDownloader: Open source software utility to extract data from HemoCue HbA1c 501 devices in epidemiological studies of diabetes mellitus

PONE-D-20-09858R1

Dear Dr. Hansen,

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.

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Kind regards,

Igor Kanovsky, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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