PONE-D-23-11894Exploring the prevalence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes in PAP smear samples of women in northern region of United Arab Emirates (UAE): HPV Direct Flow CHIP system-based pilot studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Rahamathullah,

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Olatunji Matthew Kolawole, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Your manuscript has been well reviewed and we believe it is relevant for publication, however, there are some minor, but crucial, corrections that must be done.

Kindly attend to the comments made by reviewers and present your responses in details.

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Abstract

Conclusion should summarize the key learning from the study and implications for practice, policy and research. The results provided in lines 40 to 45 should be moved to Results section.

2.2 Subjects

Line 107 - either describe the laboratory protocol or provide a reference if the protocols are a standard protocol.

2.7 Statistical Analysis

Line 147, it is sufficient to say "data were analyzed", please delete "and statistically evaluated".

3. Results

Please remove leading zeros before integers on lines 156, 173, and 175.

Line 179, start the sentence using "Fifty cases" and not "50 cases".

Table 2 (page 10), Pearson's correlation analysis not described in the Methods section. Please describe all analysis in the Methods section.

References

Lines 390 to 391 (reference 3), please use proper referencing style for a webpage showing date accessed. Recommend using a Reference manager if the references were done manually for consistency.

A general comment, the manuscript will benefit from scientific editing by a native English speaker. For example, the sentence on lines 280 to 283 is unclear. Also, the phrase "Like this" was used too frequently (lines 284, 291, 298 and 301). The language should be varied.

Reviewer #2: I am recommending the artice on Exploring the prevalence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes in PAP smear samples of women in northern region of United Arab Emirates (UAE): HPV Direct Flow CHIP system-based pilot study for publication. The research is novel

Reviewer #3: Although the manuscript is technically sound, the analysis well done and presented in an intelligent fashion, the writing standard should be improved on, to make statements in the result and discussion flow for easy understand.

For that, the following points need to be taken into consideration:

INTRODUCTIO:

there should be additional scholarly evidence/reasons for the conduct the research.

METHOD

I suggest:

1. There should be sections explaining;

a. Data Collection

b. study design

2. Study Populations should be used instead of "Subjects".

3. There should be a clear explanation of what was done with the sturdy samples to explain the variation in some reported parameters e.g. the cytology examination result repeated, why is the difference between the first and the second reported cytology result in section 3.1 and 3.2.

4. look at lines 164, 165 and 166 and rephrase the sentence for better understanding.

RESULT

I suggest

1. You should re-write the different sections of the result to make the findings simple to understand.

2. Look again at the tables to make them simpler, and

3. Review the need to use superscript a,b,c,d,e, etc for "n".

DISCUSSION

Discuss the result only, no need to repeat what was already mentioned in the result section. e.g. what is in lines 262 and 263 is a repeat of a statement that is already in the result section

CONCULUSION

Review the conclusion to distinguish between finding from the study and recommendation based on the findings. e.g. the statement in line 340, 341, and 342 contains what looks like a finding from the study but ended up with a recommendation.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Oluwasanmi Adedokun

Reviewer #2: Yes: Emmanuel Adamlekun

Reviewer #3: Yes: Lawan Adamu

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Exploring the prevalence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes in PAP smear samples of women in northern region of United Arab Emirates (UAE): HPV Direct Flow CHIP system-based pilot study

PONE-D-23-11894R1

Dear Dr. Rahamathullah,

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,

Olatunji Matthew Kolawole, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: