Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 14, 2021
Decision Letter - Michael Mimouni, Editor

PONE-D-21-32917Analysis of postoperative intraocular pathologies in patients with mature cataractsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Cho,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Michael Mimouni

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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[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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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: Yes

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

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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: Well written and simple article. Conclusions are not surprising. I wonder if the cataract surgery itself could have affected the post op findings (ERM, or retinal tears?). In any event I do not suppose this to carry clinical significance.

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting paper regarding the prevalence and risk factors of intraocular pathologies after mature cataract surgery. I have few questions for the authors:

1.- Although you state in your discussion that limited posterior segment pathologies can be seen on ocular ultrasonography, don’t you think that it is an important study to perform in all patients with dense cataract in which the fundus examination is not possible?

You report that one eye had a retinal detachment (RD) after cataract surgery, in this case, it would be important to have a previous ocular ultrasound, because you do not know if the RD was a postoperative complication of the surgery or it was already present before the surgery.

2.- You report that 73% of the eyes had the same pathology in the fellow eye, could you please specify which pathologies were found binocularly?

**********

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.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Victor Flores

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.

Revision 1

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

Answer: We thank you for the opportunity to submit a revised version of the manuscript. As per your comments, we have checked that our manuscript meets the journal’s style requirements in the pdf files above.

2. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Answer: We have checked that the reference list is complete and correct.

3. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability.

Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized.

Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access.

We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter.

Answer: We contacted the IRB center again and confirmed that it is possible to upload data without personally identifiable information. We uploaded the data file as ‘supporting information’. Also, we changed the data availability statement as below,

‘All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files.’

4. 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

Answer: The ORCID iD of the corresponding author has been linked. Thank you.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1: Well written and simple article. Conclusions are not surprising. I wonder if the cataract surgery itself could have affected the post op findings (ERM, or retinal tears?). In any event I do not suppose this to carry clinical significance.

Answer: Thank you for your thoughtful comments. As suggested, we reviewed the chart of all patients again to find any post op findings. During the mean follow-up period of 126 days, 5 cases of elevated intraocular pressure and 1 case of cystoid macular edema were noted postoperatively. Otherwise, no cases with epiretinal membrane, endophthalmitis, or retinal detachment were found.

As the reviewer commented, we also hypothesized that the prevalence of intraocular pathologies would not be particularly high compared to that of normal population. However, we thought our findings are significant because this is the first report to quantify the frequency and odds ratio of the intraocular pathologies observed after mature cataract surgery. Although our study may not carry great clinical significance, it will be helpful to explain the risks of intraocular pathologies in detail by presenting evidence in this study rather than vague warnings for patients with mature cataracts. We added this point in the result and conclusion section.

In page 9, line 109.

During the mean follow-up period of 126 days, 5 cases of elevated intraocular pressure and 1 case of cystoid macular edema were noted postoperatively. Otherwise, no cases with epiretinal membrane, endophthalmitis, or retinal detachment were found.

In page 11, line 151.

Our results would help patients with mature cataract understand the risk of intraocular pathologies with obvious evidence.

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting paper regarding the prevalence and risk factors of intraocular pathologies after mature cataract surgery. I have few questions for the authors:

1.- Although you state in your discussion that limited posterior segment pathologies can be seen on ocular ultrasonography, don’t you think that it is an important study to perform in all patients with dense cataract in which the fundus examination is not possible?

You report that one eye had a retinal detachment (RD) after cataract surgery, in this case, it would be important to have a previous ocular ultrasound, because you do not know if the RD was a postoperative complication of the surgery or it was already present before the surgery.

Answer: We totally agree with you that ocular ultrasonography still has an important meaning for preoperative evaluation in eyes with mature cataract. As you commented, we added this point in the discussion section.

In page 10, line 128,

However, this difference could not diminish the clinical implication of preoperative evaluation using ultrasonography in eyes with mature cataract. This is because, even though the frequency is small, it is possible to detect diseases with great clinical significance, such as one case of retinal detachment found in this study, using ultrasonography.

2.- You report that 73% of the eyes had the same pathology in the fellow eye, could you please specify which pathologies were found binocularly?

Answer: We apologize for insufficient explanation regarding the results. As your suggestion, we mentioned specific results about eyes that had the same pathology in the fellow eye.

In page 7, line 89,

7 with drusen, 5 with diabetic retinopathy, 4 with myopic degeneration, 3 with glaucoma, 2 with lattice degeneration and exudative age-related macular degeneration, respectively, 1 with epiretinal membrane, branch retinal vein occlusion, peripheral chorioretinal atrophy, and retinal tear, respectively.

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.

Answer: Thank you. We followed your protocol.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Michael Mimouni, Editor

Analysis of postoperative intraocular pathologies in patients with mature cataracts

PONE-D-21-32917R1

Dear Dr. Cho,

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,

Michael Mimouni

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

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: 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

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: Thank you for addressing the concerns in the revision. Look forward to seeing your paper published soon.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for addressing my questions and adding that paragraph regarding the ultrasongraphy, as it is an important preoperative exam in patients with dense cataracts.

**********

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

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Michael Mimouni, Editor

PONE-D-21-32917R1

Analysis of postoperative intraocular pathologies in patients with mature cataracts

Dear Dr. Cho:

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. Michael Mimouni

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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