PONE-D-21-04831

Quality assured implementation of the Slovenian breast cancer screening programme

PLOS ONE

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: In this article, women aged 50-69 are invited. But in US GUIDELINES, they recommend 45-74 years women to screen. I think it would be better to screen earlier as breast cancer is quite common before 50 years.

You should give training to women how to carry out breast self examination(BSE),it can help them to be alert to any abnormalities in their breast. Thereby you can assess the high risk group without doing mammography for all.

Because mammography screening may cause harms, the most widely discussed being the over diagnosis. False positive results affecting one in every five women.

Reviewer #2: Review report

Title: Quality assured implementation of the Slovenian breast cancer screening programme

ID: PONE-D-21-04831

Comments: This article comprehends the details of Slovenian breast cancer screening programme. The authors outline various phases of the programme ranging from organization level to implementation stage. As a reviewer, I believe that the effort is notable mainly because it summarizes particulars of a successful nationwide programme targeting a major health concern in women population. The publication of such an article at reputed forum of PLOS will certainly attract wider range of relevant audience. The structure of the programme at patient level is simple, designed, flexible and thus remains workable in different socio-economic backgrounds. For replication purposes, in some other parts of the world, the details of this kind of programme deserve to be publishable (in reviewer’s opinion).

Here are some specific observations of the reviewer.

• Unnecessary lengthy sentences, for example lines 61-67, 121-125 are sample of the issue.

• Sentence structure needed to be more cohesive. As this article details the phases of a very delicate programme; the massage must be very clear and well posed. On the contrary, authors after all the hard work of assembling details of the programme seems little tired at writing stage. Some of the examples are, lines 48-55, 152-155, 208-214 etc. In general authors are trying to comprehend huge amount of information in single sentence. This is observable as a pattern in the writing and seriously compromises the significance of the work.

• The reviewer encourages to use mathematical expressions when necessary. Especially, in data analysis section where vital statistics such as coverage by invitation, programme extension etc. are discussed for the first time.

• It seems better to provide the list of EU performance guidelines to document the performance indicators.

I hope the observations will be helpful in enhancing the quality of the good work conducted by the authors.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Quality assured implementation of the Slovenian breast cancer screening programme

PONE-D-21-04831R1

Dear Dr. Krajc,

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,

Rashidul Alam Mahumud, MPH, MSc, PhD

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 #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 #2: Yes

**********

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

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 #2: 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 #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 #2: Subject: Review Report for the Article entitled “Quality assured implementation of the Slovenian breast cancer screening programme”. Manuscript I. D. PONE-D-21-04831R1

Dear Editor-in-Chief

PLOS ONE,

The quality of the manuscript has significantly improved after revision. I as a reviewer think that the article is consistent with the standards of the Journal. The publication of the details of such public health initiatives, in my opinion, always remain useful on multiple fronts and the usefulness become more noticeable when it is published on reputed forum like PLOS. I recommend this article for publication, and it was a pleasure to read it first hand.

Thanks and Regards

Abdu R Rahman

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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.

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Reviewer #2: No