PONE-D-21-36708Ability and Accuracy of the Smartphone-based O`VIEW-M® Sperm Test: Useful tool in the era of Covid-19.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jung Ki Jo,

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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: 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?

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 the multicenter study which is showing good correlation between the new smart-phone-based semen analyzing kit and manual semen analysis. The tool OVIEW-M seems to have good potential as a clinical tool and this article is showing interesting result. I have some suggestions and questions below.

- Why did the author use only manual semen analysis in hospital? Don’t they use CASA?

- Why is the abstinence 5 days? According to WHO guideline, it should be 2-7 days. If there is specific reason, the author should mention.

- From this result, readers can only know the mean and SD. The graph such as simple correlation etc. which is showing the actual plots should be added.

- This study cohort only includes healthy donors. It is questionable that OVIEW-M is also reliable as actual semen analysis in patient cohort. Author should mention about this issue in discussion.

- In page 9, there are already some home test kits available for semen test in the world (see example at: https://seem.life/en/), although they are not always so accurate but aimed to just notify the people to go to hospital. Author should discuss about those kits and its merit and demerit.

- According to the result, the tool is very accurate compared to manual semen analysis. Do the author think this can replace going to the hospital, or they just want to notify the result roughly and indicate to go to the hospital? Author should discuss more about future expectation for clinical use.

Reviewer #2: To evaluate the accuracy of smartphone semen analysis using O`VIEW-M, the authors investigated the relationship between smartphone semen analysis results and laboratory semen analysis of 200 men. Although we think this article is very interesting, there are fix points, comments and some of the questions in this paper.

1. Can O`VIEW-M devices and apps be used on all smartphones? Because smartphones use different optical cameras and software.

2. Do O`VIEW-M devices and apps automatically display semen test results? Or does the user need to count the sperm count on the screen?

3. Please indicate whether each user performed the inspection in a different place. This is because microscopes using a single ball lense are strongly influenced by the light source.

4. Was each test using O`VIEW-M done by an individual? Or did the representative perform?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Ability and Accuracy of the Smartphone-based O`VIEW-M® Sperm Test: Useful tool in the era of Covid-19.

PONE-D-21-36708R1

Dear Jung Ki Jo,

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,

Joël R Drevet, Ph.D.

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: 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: 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

**********

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: All my comments included in my revision were now all addressed in the manuscript. I think this manuscript is ready for publication.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No