PONE-D-22-19770Real-world assessment of the clinical utility of whole body 18F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis of infectionPLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Marwan Azar and his colleagues report a single-center retrospective study between 2013 and 2019 evaluating the diagnostic and therapeutic impact of performing a 18F-FDG PET/CTscan in the management of 61 patients with bacteremia/fongemia or fever of unknown origin/etiology. Based on review of patient charts, they report that PET had an impact in 36% of these patients.

The analysis is purely descriptive and provides little explanatory information. If we refer to the number of patients (61) and the duration of the study (6 years), approximately 1 patient was explored each month. How much does this patient represent compared to all the patients suspected of having an infection and what were the determining factors in carrying out this examination?

Methods

Were the 18F-FDG PET/CT injected ?

Has spleen and bone marrow hypermetabolism been studied ?

Results

Line 105: isn't it rather 15 patients and not 22.

How were the patients temporally distributed over these 6 years?

How quickly were PET scans performed in relation to admission.

Line 142: Was the change in duration of antibiotic therapy lengthening or shortening?

Table 4: specify for each line what was the modification of the management.

Discussion

Line 268-271: It is above all the prognostic impact that deserves to be evaluated.

References

Add the article by Vos et al (PMID 0660384).

Reviewer #2: The authors present a single center retrospective study, evaluating the impact of FDG PET/CT in the setting of infectious disease.

The study is described sufficiently and the results are in line with the already published data.

Page 4, line 88: It should be stated that patients reveived other forms of imaging before PET (e.g. Rx and CT); generally within the standard definition of FUO.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Real-world assessment of the clinical utility of whole body 18F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis of infection

PONE-D-22-19770R1

Dear Dr. Azar,

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.

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Kind regards,

Marc O. Siegel, MD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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