The role of pulmonary rehabilitation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: An overview of systematic reviews

Shangyue Song; Zhenzhen Feng; Wenrui Liu; Jiansheng Li

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0295367

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 1, 2023
24 Oct 2023 Decision Letter - Felix Bongomin, Editor PONE-D-23-30793The role of pulmonary rehabilitation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: an overview of systematic reviewsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Li, 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 Dec 08 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-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Felix Bongomin, MB ChB, MSc, MMed, FECMM Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Did you know that depositing data in a repository is associated with up to a 25% citation advantage (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230416)? If you’ve not already done so, consider depositing your raw data in a repository to ensure your work is read, appreciated and cited by the largest possible audience. You’ll also earn an Accessible Data icon on your published paper if you deposit your data in any participating repository (https://plos.org/open-science/open-data/#accessible-data). 3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 4. 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. [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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: Many thanks for the opportunity to review this manuscript. While I think it is an interesting manuscript, I would like to make the following major and/or minor comments: 1. I think the conclusion is we do not know if PR is effective or not, and that we do not know if this pertains to the original studies or to the systematic reviews. Thus, the description of the manuscript should be "toned down". 2. Having created a sensitivity analysis based not least on the most prevalent types of PR would have been helpful. 3. Please specify in every case who has been the reviewers that conducted the literature search, by providing their capital letters. ****** 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 ******** [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.] 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295367.r001
Revision 1
4 Nov 2023 Author Response Dear Felix Bongomin and Reviewers, Thank you so much for your letter and the reviewer's comments on our manuscript entitled "The role of pulmonary rehabilitation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: an overview of systematic reviews" (ID: PONE-D-23-30793). These comments are very valuable and helpful to revise and improve the academic rigor of our article, as well as the pivotal significance in guiding our other studies. We have carefully studied the comments and made conscientious corrections. Revised portions are marked in red in the manuscript. The main corrections are in the manuscript and the responses to the reviewer's comments are as follows (the replies are highlighted in red). Responses to the reviewer's comments: Reviewer #1: 1. I think the conclusion is we do not know if PR is effective or not, and that we do not know if this pertains to the original studies or to the systematic reviews. Thus, the description of the manuscript should be "toned down". Response: We have thought very carefully about the reviewer's question, and we all agree that it is a highly valuable and helpful comment. Based on the studies we included, it might be more reasonable to draw a prudential conclusion that would contribute to the rigor and scholarship of our article. Therefore, we have revised the conclusion according to the reviewer's comments. Revised portion: Abstract: Conclusion: PR may appear to be an effective and safe treatment for patients with IPF, but the results of this overview should be interpreted dialectically and with caution. Further high-quality, rigorous studies are urgently needed to draw definitive conclusions and provide scientific evidence. (The revision is on page 3, lines 50-54 of the manuscript.) Conclusion: What is the precise role of PR in the treatment of IPF? Based on the trials we included, definitive conclusions to this question are difficult to draw. It is unclear whether this is related to the quality of the original studies and the variable quality of the evidence on the results (ranging from very low to moderate). Therefore, considering the limitations of the overview, further scientific research is warranted to investigate the efficacy of PR in IPF, for providing a more robust, scientifically rigorous, and accurate foundation for clinical decision-making. (The revision is on pages 20-21, lines 438-445.) 2. Having created a sensitivity analysis based not least on the most prevalent types of PR would have been helpful. Response: Many thanks to the reviewer for the invaluable and professional advice, this comment is significantly valuable in verifying the robustness of the study findings. We have made our best efforts to correlate prevalent types of PR. Unfortunately, this seems to be challenging given the study type of our article. The main focus of our study was to assess the risk of bias and evidence quality of the original studies we included using assessment tools to obtain clinical evidence of interest. Presenting a sensitivity analysis based on PR proved difficult as we could not analyze the obtained data quantitatively. And, to our knowledge, there do not appear to be any published overview of systematic reviews-type articles that have used this type of analysis. We would like to thank the reviewer once again for this comment. This suggestion may have been due to our unclear description of the data synthesis in the article, so we have revised the manuscript (Pages 6-7, lines 145-150, and Page 13, lines 276-277). We have described the data synthesis in the method portion more clearly in the article hoping that this will improve the methodological adequacy and rigor of the article, and we also hope that we can avoid the possibility of misinterpretation by the readers due to the unclear description of the data synthesis methodology. 3. Please specify in every case who has been the reviewers that conducted the literature search, by providing their capital letters. Response: We apologize for neglecting to detail the researchers who participated in the literature search, and the correction is below. Revised portion: Two researchers (SY Song and WR Liu) independently conducted the literature search (The revision is on page 6, line 134 of the manuscript). Other changes: 1. Page 1, line 3 and lines 16-17, We have removed the current address of one of the authors. 2. Page 21, lines 457-464, We changed this section to make it more concise and clear, the details of the revision are in the manuscript. 3. We reformatted the references according to the journal's requirements but did not add or remove any references. We did our best to improve the manuscript and ensure that our manuscript met the style requirements of PLOS ONE, so we made some changes to the manuscript. These changes do not affect the content of the paper or the framework. And here we listed the changes and marked them in red in the revised paper. We appreciate the diligent work of the editor and reviewers. Thank you for your commitment to improving the quality of our academic writing. We hope that all these changes fulfill the requirements to make the manuscript acceptable for publication. Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Jiansheng Li Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295367.r002
9 Nov 2023 Decision Letter - Felix Bongomin, Editor PONE-D-23-30793R1The role of pulmonary rehabilitation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: an overview of systematic reviewsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Li, 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 Dec 24 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-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Felix Bongomin, MB ChB, MSc, MMed, FECMM 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: Dear authors, Thank you for revising this work. However, the results section of the abstract doesn't summarise the goal of these umbrella review. Are you looking at the quality of the systematic reviews or you want to answer the question on "The role of pulmonary rehabilitation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis"? Kindly extensively revise the abstract. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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.] 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295367.r003
Revision 2
18 Nov 2023 Author Response Dear Felix Bongomin, Thank you so much for your letter and the comments on our manuscript entitled "The role of pulmonary rehabilitation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: an overview of systematic reviews" (ID: PONE-D-23-30793R1). Thank you for your dedication and valuable suggestions on our revised manuscript. We all agree that these comments are essential to strengthen the rigor and readability of our article. Therefore, we have extensively revised the abstract of our article based on your suggestions. Revised sections are highlighted in red in the manuscript. The main corrections in the manuscript are as follows. Responses to Editor Comments: 1.Additional Editor Comments: The results section of the abstract doesn't summarise the goal of these umbrella review. ……Kindly extensively revise the abstract. Response: We have thought deeply about your comments, and we all agree that it is a highly valuable and helpful comment. We apologize for the lack of clarity in the abstract, which may prevent the editor and readers from quickly understanding the main objective of our article through the abstract. Thus, our modifications of the abstract are the following. Revised portion: (1) Background: The role of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) has been studied in several systematic reviews (SRs), but no definitive conclusions have been drawn due to the wide variation in the quality and outcomes of the studies. And there are no studies to assess the quality of relevant published SRs. This overview aims to determine the effectiveness of PR in patients with IPF and to summarize and critically evaluate the risk of bias, methodological, and evidence quality of SRs on this related topic. (The revision is on page 2, lines 24-30 of the manuscript.) (2) Results: Seven SRs from 2018-2023 (including 1836 participants) on PR for the treatment of IPF were selected, all of which included patients with a definitive diagnosis of IPF. After strict evaluation by the ROBIS tool and AMSTAR-2 tool, 42.86% of the SRs had a high risk of bias and 85.71% of the SRs had critically low methodological quality in this overview. PR might be effective for patients with IPF on exercise capacity, quality of life, and pulmonary function-related outcomes, but we did not find high quality evidence to confirm the effectiveness. (The revision is on page 2, lines 38-45 of the manuscript.) (3) We reformatted the references according to the journal's requirements but did not add or remove any references. We appreciate your efforts again and hope that the revisions we made will be in line with PLOS ONE’s publication criteria. Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Jiansheng Li Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295367.r004
21 Nov 2023 Decision Letter - Felix Bongomin, Editor The role of pulmonary rehabilitation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: an overview of systematic reviews PONE-D-23-30793R2 Dear Dr. Li, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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, Felix Bongomin, MB ChB, MSc, MMed, FECMM Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295367.r005
Formally Accepted
13 Dec 2023 Acceptance Letter - Felix Bongomin, Editor PONE-D-23-30793R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Li, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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. Felix Bongomin Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295367.r006

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