Sex differences in pulmonary function parameters among Indigenous Australians with and without chronic airway disease

Subash S. Heraganahally; Timothy Howarth; Lisa Sorger; Helmi Ben Saad

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0263744

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionAugust 15, 2021
27 Dec 2021 Decision Letter - James West, Editor PONE-D-21-26363Sex differences in pulmonary function parameters among Indigenous Australians with and without chronic airway diseasePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Heraganahally, 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. In the interests of time, I've reviewed the manuscript myself (had a problem with a late reviewer), and I agree with the first reviewer. However, these are relatively major changes - the paper needs a power analysis, inclusion criteria, and a pass through for readability. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 10 2022 11:59PM. 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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. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): In the interests of time, I've reviewed the manuscript myself (had a problem with a late reviewer), and I agree with the first reviewer. However, these are relatively major changes - the paper needs a power analysis, inclusion criteria, and a pass through for readability. [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: 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 ****** 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 author performed a retrospective study on 485 adults to assess Sex differences in pulmonary function parameters among Indigenous Australians with and without chronic airway disease and concluded that There are significant sex differences in the PFTPs in Indigenous Australians. Recognizing these differences may be of value in the accurate diagnosis, management, monitoring and prognostication of CADs in this population. the topic is important and the manuscript is well designed and written but i have few comments: 1- the manuscript needs good English editing 2- what were the inclusion and the exclusion criteria? 3- how did you estimate the sample size for this study? what was the power of the study? ****** 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:** Doaa El Amrousy [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.0263744.r001
Revision 1
8 Jan 2022 Author Response We sincerely appreciate the reviewers’ time, comments and suggestions regarding our study. We have made changes to the revised manuscript taking into consideration of the reviewers’ suggestions and comments, which are detailed below. Response to reviewers comments. Reviewer: 1 Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: the author performed a retrospective study on 485 adults to assess Sex differences in pulmonary function parameters among Indigenous Australians with and without chronic airway disease and concluded that There are significant sex differences in the PFTPs in Indigenous Australians. Recognizing these differences may be of value in the accurate diagnosis, management, monitoring and prognostication of CADs in this population. the topic is important and the manuscript is well designed and written but i have few comments: Response: We sincerely thank and very pleased for the reviewer above opinion and comments. Especially for the comment that “the topic is important and the manuscript is well designed and written” 1- the manuscript needs good English editing Response: We thank the reviewer for bring this to our attention. We have addressed this in the revised manuscript were required and appropriate. 2- what were the inclusion and the exclusion criteria? Response: We thank the reviewer for asking us to clarify regarding this. We have addressed this in the revised manuscript and reads as in the revised manuscript under the method section Study participants – Inclusion and exclusion criteria Patients who underwent PFTs and had a chest radiography available (Chest X-Ray and computed tomography (CT)) to assess the presence/absence of any radiological pulmonary abnormalities (specifically demonstrating radiographic evidence of COPD/emphysema, bronchiectasis or a combination of both COPD & bronchiectasis) were included in the analysis. Patients PFTs that were assessed not acceptable for session quality were excluded. 3- how did you estimate the sample size for this study? what was the power of the study? Response: We thank the reviewer for asking us to clarify regarding this. We have added a subsection entitled “sample size” . As it was a retrospective study, we did not calculate sample size. In the revised manuscript under the subheading - Statistical analysis it reads as “As the study was a retrospective study no prior sample size estimation was conducted, however, post-hoc power analysis was conducted for testing of mean differences between females and males for pre- bronchodilator values of FVC, FEV1 and FEV1/FVC (Table1).” However, we did calculate a sample size for this study during our revision as per the reviewer suggestion as detailed below, but did not included in the revised manuscript. The authors are in the opinion that the above statement may be appropriate for this study. If the reviewer like us to include the below statement, we are happy to consider. “Given the pioneer character of our study, these two values were obtained from a comparative study of PFTPs in healthy male (n=75) and female (n=75) subjects (age range: 20-75 years) of western Rajasthan in India 9, where FEV1/FVC means±SD of females and males were, respectively, 0.8780±0.0818 and 0.8516±0.0813 (ie; a common standard-deviation equal to 0.0815). The sample size for the study was 407 (230 females and 177 males). The assumption of a percentage of 70% for exclusion criteria gave a revised sample of 1357 patients [= 407/(1-0.70)].” We hope that we have addressed the reviewers comments and suggestion satisfactorily and are acceptable to the reviewer and the editor. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PFT-Sex-Response to Reviewer comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263744.r002
26 Jan 2022 Decision Letter - James West, Editor Sex differences in pulmonary function parameters among Indigenous Australians with and without chronic airway disease PONE-D-21-26363R1 Dear Dr. Heraganahally, 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, James West, 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 #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 authors performed the required changes. The manuscript improved and The manuscript now is ready for publication. ****** 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:** Doaa El Amrousy https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263744.r003
Formally Accepted
31 Jan 2022 Acceptance Letter - James West, Editor PONE-D-21-26363R1 Sex differences in pulmonary function parameters among Indigenous Australians with and without chronic airway disease Dear Dr. Heraganahally: 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. James West Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263744.r004

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