PONE-D-23-27435Non-infectious diseases in infectious disease consultation: A descriptive study in a tertiary care teaching hospitalPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hadano,

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Tai-Heng Chen, M.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed:

https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/Fulltext/2020/06190/Infectious_disease_consultations_and_newly.84.aspx

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-23392-6

3. In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed.

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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: Thank you for the opportunity to review this insightful paper.

This study investigates the non-infectious disease component of infectious disease consultations in acute care hospitals in Japan.

From the standpoint of enhancing the quality of ID consultations, this research is invaluable.

However, before publication, certain revisions are necessary.

Major comments:

1)The authors mention that the multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that "Diagnosis and management," "Internal medicine consultation," and "non-bacteremia cases" were independently associated with non-ID cases.

Yet, there is no subsequent discussion on these three outcomes.

It is imperative for the authors to address them.

2)While the authors elaborate on the distribution of non-ID cases over the period, there is a lack of detailed information regarding the ID cases.

If feasible, a comprehensive description of the ID cases would be beneficial.

Minor comments:

Table 3:

The figures in the category of connective tissue and collagen vascular diseases are inconsistent.

What does the ")" signify in "oesteitis)?" The ")" appears to be an careless mistake by the author.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is a single-centre retrospective review of noninfectious diseases in patients who received an infectious diseases (ID) consult. The manuscript is clearly written, the conclusions are sound, and the main limitations are correctly summarised.

The article's main limitation is a lack of generalisability. The centre where patients were recruited lacks a general medical department. Thus the pattern of non-infectious diagnoses for which ID were consulted may be very different to that in a hospital where generalists (internists, etc.) are more commonplace, and who may be more comfortable making non-infectious diagnoses. The authors do acknowledge this in the limitations section, but it remains a significant limitation nonetheless.

I have only minor comments:

1. I wasn't clear in the methods section how patients with both an ID and a non-ID diagnosis were categorised. (E.g. a patient with Hodgkins Lymphoma and also a bacteraemia). Greater clarity on this point would be welcome, since it speaks to whether the ID consultation was appropriate or not.

2. In the abstract, lines 33-37 are largely redundant, since they restate the preceding sentences.

3. Findings such as ID consultation for "diagnosis and management [as opposed to for treatment of established infections] was more common in the non-ID group" are almost inevitable from the definitions used (if the ID problem was obvious, then there would be no reason to consult the ID division for diagnosis). This may be worth clarifying in the discussion.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Non-infectious diseases in infectious disease consultation: A descriptive study in a tertiary care teaching hospital

PONE-D-23-27435R1

Dear Dr. Hadano,

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,

Tai-Heng Chen, M.D., Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

**********

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)

Reviewer #2: Thank you - the authors have addressed my comments to my satisfaction. This has entailed a significant reworking of their primary data, but this is for the best.

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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: No

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