Unaffected fellow eye neovascularization in patients with type 3 neovascularization: Incidence and risk factors

Jae Hyuck Kwak; Woo Kyung Park; Rae Young Kim; Mirinae Kim; Young-Gun Park; Young-Hoon Park

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0254186

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 17, 2021
30 Mar 2021 Decision Letter - Yuhua Zhang, Editor PONE-D-21-05303 Unaffected fellow eye neovascularization in patients with retinal angiomatous proliferation: incidence and risk factors PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Park, 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. The academic editor suggests using 'Type 3 MNV' to replace the term 'retinal angiomatous proliferation or RAP.' Please not the recent publication on consensus nomenclature for reporting neovascular AMD. Spaide RF, Jaffe GJ, Sarraf D, Freund KB, Sadda SR, Staurenghi G, Waheed NK, Chakravarthy U, Rosenfeld PJ, Holz FG, Souied EH, Cohen SY, Querques G, Ohno-Matsui K, Boyer D, Gaudric A, Blodi B, Baumal CR, Li X, Coscas GJ, Brucker A, Singerman L, Luthert P, Schmitz-Valckenberg S, Schmidt-Erfurth U, Grossniklaus HE, Wilson DJ, Guymer R, Yannuzzi LA, Chew EY, Csaky K, Mones JM, Pauleikhoff D, Tadayoni R, Fujimoto J (2020) Consensus Nomenclature for Reporting Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration Data: Consensus on Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration Nomenclature Study Group. Ophthalmology 127 (5):616-636. doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2019.11.004 Please submit your revised manuscript by May 31,2021. 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. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Yuhua Zhang 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. If you are reporting a retrospective study of medical records or archived samples, please ensure that you have discussed whether all data were fully anonymized before you accessed them. If patients provided informed written consent to have data from their medical records used in research, please include this information. 3. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. [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: Partly Reviewer #2: No ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: No ****** 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 Reviewer #2: 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: I think that the findings could be of interest to the readers and this is one of the largest series reporting type 3 MNVs. However, I think that there are some issues that need to be solved: 1° - I have some concerns about the CVI analysis. - Which type of analysis was performed? Based on one b-scan? Which one? Or a 3D CVI analysis? Please specify. - Which kind of threshold was applied? An auto-local threshold or not? Was there a compensation mode used in the algorithm? - I have some concerns about the results. Only a value of 2 for the SD in the results of CVI is a little strange. The % expressed by CVI, is useful very variable between subjects, with higher levels of SD (as reported by the results of several papers). Do you have a technical explanation of that? 2° - The main result of the paper is based on the difference in CVI. However, in %, the mean difference between the two groups was only 1% (60.7% vs 61.7%). This is a very little difference and I am not sure that it is clinically relevant and repeatable. How was calculated the sample size? Which margin of error? Which power? Which alpha? Because it is very important to conduct an analysis based on the sample size. In fact, if the sample is too large for the expected results, some difference could be statistically significant only because the sample is too large. This is a very important point because the sample here is large, the difference is small (60.7% vs 61.7%), and the p-value was at the limit of significance (0.047). 3° - I think that is better to refer to type 3 MNV as “Type 3 MNV” (Freund KB, Ho IV, Barbazetto IA, Koizumi H, Laud K, Ferrara D, Matsumoto Y, Sorenson JA, Yannuzzi L. Type 3 neovascularization: the expanded spectrum of retinal angiomatous proliferation. Retina. 2008 Feb;28(2):201-11.) instead of RAP. Indeed, the term “RAP” was coined based on a retinal origin of type 3 MNV. On the other hand, Type 3 MNV is independent of the origin of the lesion (retinal or choroidal origin). 4°- Several in vivo studies, suggested the retinal origin of the type 3 MNV (i.e. Sacconi R, Sarraf D, Garrity S, Freund KB, Yannuzzi LA, Gal-Or O, Souied E, Sieiro A, Corbelli E, Carnevali A, Querques L, Bandello F, Querques G. Nascent Type 3 Neovascularization in Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Ophthalmol Retina. 2018 Nov;2(11):1097-1106.). I think that the authors should cite it. Reviewer #2: To Authors, The concept of this paper is slightly interesting. The study may be the first study for investigating the influence of the CVI in the development of fellow eye neovascularization in patients with unilateral RAP. However, the significant difference to be just “p=0.047”, which should be too low for making people to have common sense. At line 193-199, the authors mentioned, “In the current study, we revealed that a lower CVI was associated with the development of neovascularization in the unaffected fellow eye of RAP patients. Reduced choroidal vascularity could lead to choroidal ischemic change, and this condition might affect the formation of choroidal neovascularization. Moreover, this result may suggest that lower CVI values in the unaffected fellow eyes of patients with RAP indicate progressed choroidal ischemic change and possible subclinical disease. Based on the results of the current study, we recommend early evaluation of the CVI in the unaffected fellow eyes of patients with RAP and establishing a proper follow-up plan.” However, this study showed the significant difference to be just “p=0.047”, which should be too low for making people to have common sense. The authors should rewrite the paragraph. In the Discussion section, the authors did make no mention of the study of PLoS ONE 15(12): e0243458. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243458, which is the latest publication on the topic about onset of RAP lesions. This paper must be presented and discussed in the Discussion section of the paper by the authors ****** 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: No Reviewer #2: No [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.0254186.r001
Revision 1
11 May 2021 Author Response Reviewer #1: I think that the findings could be of interest to the readers and this is one of the largest series reporting type 3 MNVs. However, I think that there are some issues that need to be solved: 1° - I have some concerns about the CVI analysis. - Which type of analysis was performed? Based on one b-scan? Which one? Or a 3D CVI analysis? Please specify. Response) An OCT B-scan image based and Agrawal’s method was adapted. We add this in the methods section, page 4, line 99. - Which kind of threshold was applied? An auto-local threshold or not? Was there a compensation mode used in the algorithm? Response) Niblack auto-local threshold was applied, and other compensation modes were not used. We add this in the methods section, page 5, line 101-102 - I have some concerns about the results. Only a value of 2 for the SD in the results of CVI is a little strange. The % expressed by CVI, is useful very variable between subjects, with higher levels of SD (as reported by the results of several papers). Do you have a technical explanation of that? Response) Thank you for pointing this out. In this study, we measured CVI according to the method of Agrawal et al, as mentioned in the methods section, and there were no technical differences. And referring to CVI in existing literatures (Rupesh Agrawal, Jianbin Ding, Parveen Sen, Andres Rousselot, Amy Chan, Lisa Nivison-Smith, Xin Wei, Sarakshi Mahajan, Ramasamy Kim, Chitaranjan Mishra, Manisha Agarwal, Min Hee Suh, Saurabh Luthra, Marion R. Munk, Carol Y. Cheung, Vishali Gupta, Exploring choroidal angioarchitecture in health and disease using choroidal vascularity index, Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, Volume 77, 2020,100829), it has been reported that the SD value of CVI varies from less than 1 to more than 10 in various diseases. 2° - The main result of the paper is based on the difference in CVI. However, in %, the mean difference between the two groups was only 1% (60.7% vs 61.7%). This is a very little difference and I am not sure that it is clinically relevant and repeatable. How was calculated the sample size? Which margin of error? Which power? Which alpha? Because it is very important to conduct an analysis based on the sample size. In fact, if the sample is too large for the expected results, some difference could be statistically significant only because the sample is too large. This is a very important point because the sample here is large, the difference is small (60.7% vs 61.7%), and the p-value was at the limit of significance (0.047). Response) Thank you for pointing this out. Since this study was conducted in a retrospectively medical chart review method, the sample size could not be calculated at the research design stage. In fact, there is a lot of debate about whether it makes sense for post-hoc power analysis, and it is said that If a sample is selected, outcomes are no longer random and power analysis becomes meaningless for this particular study sample. (Zhang Y, Hedo R, Rivera A, et. al Post hoc power analysis: is it an informative and meaningful analysis? General Psychiatry 2019;32:e100069. doi: 10.1136/gpsych-2019-100069). Therefore, we have not added any information about post-hoc power analysis to the manuscript. However, we added to the discussion section that one of the limitations of this study was that the mean difference between the CVI results is small and the p-value was close to the upper limit of the statistical significance. (Revised manuscript with tract changes, Discussion, page 10, line 231-235) 3° - I think that is better to refer to type 3 MNV as “Type 3 MNV” (Freund KB, Ho IV, Barbazetto IA, Koizumi H, Laud K, Ferrara D, Matsumoto Y, Sorenson JA, Yannuzzi L. Type 3 neovascularization: the expanded spectrum of retinal angiomatous proliferation. Retina. 2008 Feb;28(2):201-11.) instead of RAP. Indeed, the term “RAP” was coined based on a retinal origin of type 3 MNV. On the other hand, Type 3 MNV is independent of the origin of the lesion (retinal or choroidal origin). Response) We very much appreciate this comment and totally agree with you. We have revised entire manuscript and added related information to the introduction section, page 3, line 49-52 in revised manuscript with tract changes. 4°- Several in vivo studies, suggested the retinal origin of the type 3 MNV (i.e. Sacconi R, Sarraf D, Garrity S, Freund KB, Yannuzzi LA, Gal-Or O, Souied E, Sieiro A, Corbelli E, Carnevali A, Querques L, Bandello F, Querques G. Nascent Type 3 Neovascularization in Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Ophthalmol Retina. 2018 Nov;2(11):1097-1106.). I think that the authors should cite it Response) Thank you for the comments. We add this in the introduction section, page 3, line 69-71 in revised manuscript with tract changes. Reviewer #2: To Authors, The concept of this paper is slightly interesting. The study may be the first study for investigating the influence of the CVI in the development of fellow eye neovascularization in patients with unilateral RAP. However, the significant difference to be just “p=0.047”, which should be too low for making people to have common sense. Response) We very much appreciate this comment and totally agree with you. We added to the discussion section that one of the limitations of this study was that the p-value was close to the upper limit of the statistical significance. (Revised manuscript with tract changes, Discussion, page 10, line 231-235) At line 193-199, the authors mentioned, “In the current study, we revealed that a lower CVI was associated with the development of neovascularization in the unaffected fellow eye of RAP patients. Reduced choroidal vascularity could lead to choroidal ischemic change, and this condition might affect the formation of choroidal neovascularization. Moreover, this result may suggest that lower CVI values in the unaffected fellow eyes of patients with RAP indicate progressed choroidal ischemic change and possible subclinical disease. Based on the results of the current study, we recommend early evaluation of the CVI in the unaffected fellow eyes of patients with RAP and establishing a proper follow-up plan.” However, this study showed the significant difference to be just “p=0.047”, which should be too low for making people to have common sense. The authors should rewrite the paragraph. Response) Thank you for pointing this out. As per your comments, we have revised the paragraph. (Revised manuscript with tract changes, Discussion, page 9, line 204-212) Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254186.r002
14 Jun 2021 Decision Letter - Yuhua Zhang, Editor PONE-D-21-05303R1 Unaffected fellow eye neovascularization in patients with type 3 neovascularization: incidence and risk factors PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Park, 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. I hope you can address the concerns raised by Reviewer 2, though you do not have to agree with the comments. Please submit your revised manuscript by 07/10/2021. 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. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Yuhua Zhang Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (if provided): I hope you can address the comments from reviewer 2. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: (No Response) ******** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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 should be congratulated because they address all the reviewers' comments. I have no more issues. Reviewer #2: I could not find your comments about the following question. In the Discussion section, the authors did make no mention of the study of PLoS ONE 15(12): e0243458. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243458, which is the latest publication on the topic about onset of RAP lesions (type 3 MNV). This paper must be presented and discussed in the Discussion section of the paper by the authors. ****** 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: No [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.0254186.r003
Revision 2
16 Jun 2021 Author Response Reviewer #1: The authors should be congratulated because they address all the reviewers' comments. I have no more issues. Response) We very much appreciate your comment. Reviewer #2: I could not find your comments about the following question. In the Discussion section, the authors did make no mention of the study of PLoS ONE 15(12): e0243458. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243458, which is the latest publication on the topic about onset of RAP lesions (type 3 MNV). This paper must be presented and discussed in the Discussion section of the paper by the authors. Response) Thank you for pointing this out. The study mentioned above suggested that melanin deficiency in RPE cells is a result of intensive macular stress and that neovascularization may occur in association with several cytokines secreted during this period. Here, intensive macular stress can be induced from ischemic choroidal condition, so our study is thought to show a trend that is not different from the results of the above study. We add this in the discussion section, page 9, line 191-193 and 208-212 in revised manuscript with tract changes. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers2.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254186.r004
22 Jun 2021 Decision Letter - Yuhua Zhang, Editor Unaffected fellow eye neovascularization in patients with type 3 neovascularization: incidence and risk factors PONE-D-21-05303R2 Dear Dr. Park, 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, Yuhua Zhang Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254186.r005
Formally Accepted
7 Jul 2021 Acceptance Letter - Yuhua Zhang, Editor PONE-D-21-05303R2 Unaffected fellow eye neovascularization in patients with type 3 neovascularization: incidence and risk factors Dear Dr. Park: 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. Yuhua Zhang Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254186.r006

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 .