Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 30, 2022
Decision Letter - Zahid Mehmood, Editor

PONE-D-22-18402CT Radiomics for Differentiating Fat Poor Angiomyolipoma from Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Malayeri,

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.

Kindly revise your paper keeping in view the suggested guidelines.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Zahid Mehmood, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Please revise your paper according to the following suggested changes;

1. The authors need to re-write the abstract again to show the objective of this paper clearly.

2. Introduction section needs to be finished with summary and the contribution should be pointed out.

3. The proposed approach each stage is not discussed in details, nor each stage is interlink appropriately and the discussion is very poor. Please revise it carefully.

4. The author also needs to make a clear conclusion/novelty at the end of each sub-section of methodology.

5. In result section, the authors require to present clear details about the data analysis.

6. The following recent studies on should be discussed in related work;

Data hiding technique in steganography for information security using number theory, 2019

MedDeblur: Medical Image Deblurring with Residual Dense Spatial-Asymmetric Attention, 2022

Stress Estimation Model for the Sustainable Health of Cancer Patients, 2022

Publishing and interlinking covid-19 data using linked open data principles: toward effective healthcare planning and decision-making, 2022

Image authenticity detection using DWT and circular block-based LTrP features, 2019

[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

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

Reviewer #1: 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: No

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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

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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: 1. A common radiologic dilemma is still not avoided for CT imaging to differentiate fat-poor angiomyolipomas (fp-AMLs) from clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs) due to the limitation of density of CT images. CT radiomics may improve to present the renal mass characteristics on basis of CT images, and many studies proved that it is a good tool in detecting fp-AMLs from RCCs. This article about the systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of CT Radiomics for Differentiating fp-AMLs from ccRCCs will be benifit to acknowledge the role of CT radiomics.

2. Radiomics is still being a hot topic because it is a promising and powerful addition to the diagnostic armamentarium, and the limitations is evident in the design and execution of the studies and these limit its translation into clinical practice. The distinctive characteristics of CT radiomics are not deep analyzed and not widely acknowleged. This article did not present the different signs of CT radiomics in detail for RCCs and fp-AMLs, and the cited articles are small.

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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: No

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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.

Revision 1

Dear Dr. Zahid Mehmood,

Thank you so much indeed for your consideration regarding our manuscript entitled “CT Radiomics for Differentiating Fat Poor Angiomyolipoma from Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis”. Also, we are deeply thankful to the reviewer whose comments improved the quality of our paper.

Editor Comments:

Please revise your paper according to the following suggested changes;

1. The authors need to re-write the abstract again to show the objective of this paper clearly.

2. Introduction section needs to be finished with summary and the contribution should be pointed out.

3. The proposed approach each stage is not discussed in details, nor each stage is interlink appropriately and the discussion is very poor. Please revise it carefully.

4. The author also needs to make a clear conclusion/novelty at the end of each sub-section of methodology.

5. In result section, the authors require to present clear details about the data analysis.

6. The following recent studies on should be discussed in related work;

� Data hiding technique in steganography for information security using number theory, 2019

� MedDeblur: Medical Image Deblurring with Residual Dense Spatial-Asymmetric Attention, 2022

� Stress Estimation Model for the Sustainable Health of Cancer Patients, 2022

� Publishing and interlinking covid-19 data using linked open data principles: toward effective healthcare planning and decision-making, 2022

� Image authenticity detection using DWT and circular block-based LTrP features, 2019

Response: Thank you for your comments. Could you please confirm whether these comments are associated with this manuscript since we noticed that the articles you recommended to discuss in the manuscript are not pertinent to our subject matter.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1:

1. A common radiologic dilemma is still not avoided for CT imaging to differentiate fat-poor angiomyolipomas (fp-AMLs) from clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs) due to the limitation of density of CT images. CT radiomics may improve to present the renal mass characteristics on basis of CT images, and many studies proved that it is a good tool in detecting fp-AMLs from RCCs. This article about the systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of CT Radiomics for Differentiating fp-AMLs from ccRCCs will be benifit to acknowledge the role of CT radiomics.

2. Radiomics is still being a hot topic because it is a promising and powerful addition to the diagnostic armamentarium, and the limitations is evident in the design and execution of the studies and these limit its translation into clinical practice.

Comment 1. The distinctive characteristics of CT radiomics are not deep analyzed and not widely acknowleged. This article did not present the different signs of CT radiomics in detail for RCCs and fp-AMLs, and the cited articles are small.

Response 1: Thanks for your comment. We acknowledged your concern regarding “analyzing and discussing distinctive characteristics and signs of CT radiomics” by adding one paragraph in discussion and one paragraph in the limitation.

Regarding your comment on the limited number of cited articles, we made a conscious effort to concentrate on studies that met our inclusion criteria from 2011 to 2022, as these were the articles that had undergone the three stages of screening. We were not able to consider any recent studies from June 2022 to March 2023 as they had not been evaluated for inclusion criteria and our manuscript has been under review at PLOS ONE for the past nine months.

Please let us know if there are any other changes required.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

Ashkan Malayeri

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Zahid Mehmood, Editor

CT Radiomics for Differentiating Fat Poor Angiomyolipoma from Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

PONE-D-22-18402R1

Dear Dr. Malayeri,

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,

Zahid Mehmood, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Accept in current form as authors have addressed all reviewer comments in the revised manuscript.

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

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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

**********

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: (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

**********

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Zahid Mehmood, Editor

PONE-D-22-18402R1

CT Radiomics for Differentiating Fat Poor Angiomyolipoma from Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Dear Dr. Malayeri:

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. Zahid Mehmood

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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