PONE-D-23-12341The yield of procalcitonin and Interleukin-6 in predicting intraamniotic infection

in the presence of intrapartum fever: A pilot studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ehrlich,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

The reviewers have expressed positive comments regarding your article, raising only few concerns. Considering this point, I invite authors to perform the required minor revisions.

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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

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?

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: No

Reviewer #3: 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: No

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: Fever during labour is a serious problem, it associates with potential significant poor fetal outcome

therefore your research Is interesting

I would like to ask for minor revisions

Abstract: should it be structured (background, methods..etc)?

Introduction: please improve it letting the reader conscious of the implication of intrapartum intraamniotic infection, that can go up to stillbirth (examples: doi: 10.36129/jog.2022.20 PMID: 17547873)

methods: can you better clarify how did you evaluate the power of this study in terms of numbers of participants

Conclusion is missing or was not required?

pay attention to English (... Acknowladgments)

Reviewer #2: I read with great interest the Manuscript titled “The yield of procalcitonin and Interleukin-6 in predicting intraamniotic infection in the presence of intrapartum fever: A pilot study” "PONE-D-23-12341", which falls within the aim of this Journal.

In my honest opinion, the topic is interesting enough to attract the readers’ attention. Methodology is accurate and conclusions are supported by the data analysis. Nevertheless, authors should clarify some point and improve the discussion citing relevant and novel key articles about the topic.

Authors should consider the following recommendations:

- Manuscript should be further revised by a native English speaker

- In the Results section, the Authors have simply reported the p values, from which however it is not possible to deduce the real clinical relevance of the highlighted statistical significance. In order to better understand the obtained results, I suggest reporting not only the p values, but also the corresponding confidence intervals

- The authors have not adequately highlighted the strengths and limitations of their study. I suggest clarifying these points

- Does this manuscript conform the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) network guidelines? It would be mandatory to declare about this element

- Was this study registered? I could not find any information about this point

- I suggest to discuss, at least briefly, the risk factors associated with adverse fetal outcomes in pregnancies affected by COVID-19 (authors may refer to: PMID: 32975205; PMID: 36143264).

Reviewer #3: I read with great interest the Manuscript titled " The yield of procalcitonin and Interleukin-6 in predicting intraamniotic infection in the presence of intrapartum fever: A pilot study" which falls within the aim of the Journal.

In my opinion, this topic analyzed is interesting enough to attract readers’ attention.

Although the manuscript can be considered already of good quality, I would suggest to take into account the following recommendations:

- I would recommend to add further details to discuss common causes of preterm delivery, such as advanced maternal age as well as infections (authors may refer to: PMID: 25027820; PMID: 34207831).

- I suggest a round of language revision, in order to correct few typos and improve readability.

Because of these reasons, the article should be revised and completed. Considering all these points, I think it could be of interest for the readers and, in my opinion, it deserves the priority to be published after minor revisions.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Silvia Ganduscio

Reviewer #3: Yes: Ilaria Cuccu

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The yield of procalcitonin and Interleukin-6 in predicting intraamniotic infection

in the presence of intrapartum fever: A pilot study

PONE-D-23-12341R1

Dear Dr. Ehrlich,

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,

Antonio Simone Laganà, M.D., Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors performed the required corrections, which were positively evaluated by the reviewers. I am pleased to accept this paper for publication.

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

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Dear authors thank you for having addressed reviewers comment

congratulations for your paper

Best regards

Reviewer #2: I carefully evaluated the revised version of this manuscript.

Authors have performed the required changes, improving significantly the quality of the paper.

Reviewer #3: I wanted to thank the authors for making the requested changes and thus broadening and clarifying the discussion. I also thank them for correcting the English. Thanks to these modifications the article is much more flowing and clearer and that's why it is deserves the priority to be published

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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: Yes: Silvia Ganduscio

Reviewer #3: No

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