Partial cortico-hippocampectomy in cats, as therapy for refractory temporal epilepsy: A descriptive cadaveric study

Jessica Zilli; Monika Kressin; Anne Schänzer; Marian Kampschulte; Martin J. Schmidt

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244892

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 30, 2020
22 Oct 2020 Decision Letter - Tommaso Banzato, Editor PONE-D-20-23336 Partial cortico-hippocampectomy in cats, as therapy for refractory temporal epilepsy: a descriptive cadaveric study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Zilli, 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. Please provide a detailed point by point answer to the Reviewer's concerns, on which I totally agree. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 06 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're 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. 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). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Tommaso Banzato Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ [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: N/A ****** 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: Yes ****** 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 article of Zilli and Coll. describes a new and fairly accurate approach to partial cortico-temporal surgery for the treatment of refractory temporal epilepsy in cats. The article is well written, well-documented and innovative. I have no objection to the rationale and core of the text. However, I have some observation on the logical and practical application of the procedure: • The AA repeatedly discuss the potential “damage” of surrounding brain areas induced by the proposed surgery. In my opinion this way to express the situation is wrong, as they are proposing and discussing a cadaver study. There is no “damage”, but a potential trespassing of the intended area defined as a target. I would rather use a different wording of their description. This is no simple whim, as I had to read the abstract and text accurately to understand the meaning they give to the “damage”. • Matter of fact, the potential real damage induced by the procedure in living animals is probably greatly due to edema and inflammation of the surrounding tissue, and not by excessive removal of the target. Please comment • Although they describe the external approach in some detail, in my opinion they may have underestimated the huge adverse effect of the surgery on the temporal muscle and related structure of the area. Considering the importance of the said muscle and temporo-mandibular joint in cats, I suggest to examine the potential negative consequence • The AA described the experimental series of cats, that includes very small (young) individuals. A descriptive and detailed Table would help • The AA. Should also cite the classic stereotaxic atlas of the cat brain by Snider et al. and later partial books on the same subject. Stereotactical surgery is way less invasive. I understand that the therapeutic approach envisioned here requires extensive tissue removal. However, the pros and cons of selective ablation or coagulation of limited brain areas focal to epilepsy induction should be at least briefly discussed. ****** 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:** Bruno Cozzi [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.] 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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244892.r001
Revision 1
7 Dec 2020 Author Response Dear Mr Cozzi, I would like to thank you for taking the time to reviewing our study. I very much appreciated your comments and ameliorations and I have already integrated them into the paper. I would also use this opportunity to respond to you and discuss each of the mentioned points. Reviewer #1: The article of Zilli and Coll. describes a new and fairly accurate approach to partial cortico-temporal surgery for the treatment of refractory temporal epilepsy in cats. The article is well written, well-documented and innovative. I have no objection to the rationale and core of the text. Authors: I am extremely glad to hear that you like our approach for the resection of the hippocampus in cats with antiepileptic drug resistant temporal epilepsy. Reviewer #1: The AA repeatedly discuss the potential “damage” of surrounding brain areas induced by the proposed surgery. In my opinion this way to express the situation is wrong, as they are proposing and discussing a cadaver study. There is no “damage”, but a potential trespassing of the intended area defined as a target. I would rather use a different wording of their description. This is no simple whim, as I had to read the abstract and text accurately to understand the meaning they give to the “damage”. Matter of fact, the potential real damage induced by the procedure in living animals is probably greatly due to edema and inflammation of the surrounding tissue, and not by excessive removal of the target. Please comment Authors: We absolutely agree that the negative effects of tissue manipulation would be more profound in a living animal and may rather include intraparenchymal haemorrhage and edema. We would like to describe the potential complications of brain tissue manipulation while removing the hippocampus. Therefore, we have tried to improve the wording in the text in order to support the reader´s understanding of our concept of “damage”. Moreover, we added a paragraph in the results including further complications we encountered during the study and that can occur also in living animals. After thoroughly studying the wording, we cannot see a semantic difference between primary mechanical damage of the tissue and the secondary effects after mechanically destroying/manipulating the tissue, which can also be described as damage, as general term. The word injury has a synonymous meaning. Nevertheless, we made some specifications, hoping to improve the comprehension of the text. Reviewer #1: Although they describe the external approach in some detail, in my opinion they may have underestimated the huge adverse effect of the surgery on the temporal muscle and related structure of the area. Considering the importance of the said muscle and temporo-mandibular joint in cats, I suggest to examine the potential negative consequence. Authors: Although we see the concern of the reviewer, the lateral transtemporal approach to the brain is a standard technique in veterinary neurosurgery and the mechanical insult to the temporal muscle in our approach seems to be relatively minor compared with the described basolateral approaches that include resection of the zygomatic arch, of the condylar and/or coronoid processes of the mandibula. We do not resect the muscle or widely detach its insertion or impair the vascular supply. The temporo-mandibular joint remains unaffected. However, we have included a paragraph in the discussion evaluating this concern. Reviewer #1: The AA described the experimental series of cats, that includes very small (young) individuals. A descriptive and detailed Table would help Authors: We have added the requested table in the section “Material and methods”. Reviewer #1: The AA should also cite the classic stereotaxic atlas of the cat brain by Snider et al. and later partial books on the same subject. Stereotactical surgery is way less invasive. I understand that the therapeutic approach envisioned here requires extensive tissue removal. However, the pros and cons of selective ablation or coagulation of limited brain areas focal to epilepsy induction should be at least briefly discussed. Authors: We added the requested references, as well as a paragraph in the discussion reflecting on the use of neuronavigational systems and its advantages and disadvantages. We are aware that a less invasive approach would be possible if a histological examination is not required, nevertheless we consider it as an extremely important point in patients with structural epilepsy. Indeed, also in human medicine the examination of the resected specimen is always performed. We hope you will appreciate the changes we apported to the paper and we look forward to your reply. Kind regards, Jessica Zilli Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Rebuttal letter.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244892.r002
18 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Tommaso Banzato, Editor Partial cortico-hippocampectomy in cats, as therapy for refractory temporal epilepsy: a descriptive cadaveric study PONE-D-20-23336R1 Dear Dr. Zilli, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. 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 help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- 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. Kind regards, Tommaso Banzato 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 ******** 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: The AA addressed all my comments and their answers are fully satisfactory, even when their opinion does not agree with mine ****** 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:** Bruno Cozzi https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244892.r003
Formally Accepted
4 Jan 2021 Acceptance Letter - Tommaso Banzato, Editor PONE-D-20-23336R1 Partial cortico-hippocampectomy in cats, as therapy for refractory temporal epilepsy: a descriptive cadaveric study Dear Dr. Zilli: I'm 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 let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Tommaso Banzato Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244892.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 .