PONE-D-21-34801Value of C-11 methionine PET/CT in patients with intracranial germinomaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Moon,

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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ACADEMIC EDITOR:

The article is of scientific interest and original to evaluate the role of [11C]methionine PET/CT in patients with intracranial germinoma (IG). 

Please follow the reviewers comments, with particular attention to the semiquantification analysis reporting SUV values and the improvement of the scientific language. Any significant similarity or difference with other similar article should be discussed more estensively as the limitations of the study.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 11 2022 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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Pierpaolo Alongi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

The article is of scientific interest and original to evaluate the role of [11C]methionine PET/CT in patients with intracranial germinoma (IG).

Please follow the reviewer's comments, with particular attention to the semiquantification analysis reporting SUV values and the improvement of the scientific language. Any significant similarity or difference with other similar article should be discussed more estensively as the limitations of the study.

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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: Partly

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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?

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: This is a very well written paper and deserves only minor changes.

The discussion should be implemented with a comparison with FDG.

The figure legend of fig. 1 should be expanded including also the corresponding T/N ratios and tumor sizes.

Both images should incorporate a color bar.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript aims to evaluate the role of [11C]methionine PET/CT in patients with intracranial germinoma (IG). The topic is certainly of interest to readers, as the literature on it is scarce, but the paper needs to be profoundly improved before being considered for publication.

First of all, the language used should be modified in some cases as it does not sound very "scientific" (for example, page 3 line 54 "situation" could be substitute by "clinical scenario" or something similar).

The introduction section is bare, and many sentences should be further explained (e.g. Why are the tumors occurring at the basal ganglia not easy to distinguish? Or what is the usefulness of MET PET already demonstrated by previous studies?).

In the "Materials and methods"section it might be interesting to add the days between biopsy and PET/CT; do you think the uptake could be influenced by a recent biopsy, bearing in mind that the tracer accumulates where inflammatory changes occur? Furthermore, what does "MET uptake was markedly higher than background" mean? Did you measure the SUV? If so, how many times did the SUV of the lesion have to be compared to that of BKG to be defined as "markedly higher"?

As a final consideration, the sentences regarding study limitations and conclusions are too short and should be improved and the discussion might also include what the future of IG imaging may be, as 11C- needs an on-site cyclotron.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Natale Quartuccio

Reviewer #2: No

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Value of C-11 methionine PET/CT in patients with intracranial germinoma

PONE-D-21-34801R1

Dear Dr. Moon,

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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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,

Pierpaolo Alongi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The manuscript has been significantly improved now and can be considered for publication on PLOS ONE.

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: All the comments have been addressed correctly by the authors. I have no further concerns about the manuscript.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript has been significantly improved now and can be considered for publication on PLOS ONE.

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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.

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: Natale Quartuccio

Reviewer #2: Yes: Priscilla Guglielmo