PONE-D-23-07187Interpretable machine learning models to predict short-term postoperative outcomes following posterior cervical fusionPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Karabacak

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments :

The link

. https://huggingface.co/spaces/MSHS-Neurosurgery-Research/NSQIP-PCF. 


shows runtime error

. Line 61: What does the abbreviation “LOS” stand for? Meaning of any abbreviation should be mentioned on its first use, then the abbreviation should be used afterwards

. Line 116: “PT” repeated 2 times

. Line 117: meaning of the abbreviation “vs” should be mentioned on its first use “versus”

. Line 120: https://www.facs.org/quality-programs/data-and-registries/acs-nsqip/participant-use-data- file/). 
”File not found”

. Line 158: meaning of the abbreviation LOS (length of stay) should be mentioned on its first use (line 61).

. References

. Should be written as indexed in Index Medicus

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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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: 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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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: I have read this interesting manuscript and have the following comments:

- The link 'https://huggingface.co/spaces/MSHS-Neurosurgery-Research/NSQIP-PCF' the authors placed is NOT functioning and always gives a Runtime Error !!!

- Why did the authors exclude patients with thoracic and lumbar fusions or operations for intraspinal lesions ??

- Why were Race and ethnicity variables were consolidated into one column, 'Race' ??

Reviewer #2: The authors use a registry based database and machine learning prediction algorithms to predict length of hospital stay, re-admissions and non-home discharge. They found that The most accurately predicted outcome in terms of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) was the non-home discharges with a mean AUROC of 0.812, and the most accurately predicting algorithm in terms of AUROC was the LightGBM algorithm with a mean AUROC of 0.766.

The mentioned link to the prediction tool is still not working, i would prefer to submit a test version for the reviewers to be more able to test the tool.

The paper can be accepted for publication.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Ahmed Shawky Abdelgawaad

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PONE-D-23-07187R1Interpretable machine learning models to predict short-term postoperative outcomes following posterior cervical fusionPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Margetis,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 10 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-emailutm_source=authorlettersutm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Mohamed El-Sayed Abdel-Wanis, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you for your reply

As regards the references:

Reference number 3: “Global Spine Journal” is indexed as Global Spine J.

Reference number 4: “World Neurosurgery” is indexed as “World Neurosurg”

Reference number 10: Journal of the American College of Surgeons is indexed as “J Am Coll Surg”

Please kindly review all references to confirm that all are reported as indexed in the Index medicus

Authors mentioned in their reply that figures were re-uploaded with better quality, however, I did not receive any figures in the revision file

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

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Interpretable machine learning models to predict short-term postoperative outcomes following posterior cervical fusion

PONE-D-23-07187R2

Dear Dr. Konstantinos Margetis

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,

Mohamed El-Sayed Abdel-Wanis, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: