PONE-D-23-32604Burden of tobacco-related cancers in urban, semi-urban and rural setting of Nepal: results from population-based cancer registries 2019PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. KAFLE DAHAL,

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.

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ACADEMIC EDITOR: Please insert comments here and delete this placeholder text when finished. Be sure to:

1. Though cigarette consumption is decreasing in Nepal, smokeless tobacco users are increasing in Nepal. How will your paper contribute to reducing such a burden? Explain introduction. 

2. The method needs to be extended. It means providing in detail. The time period of Data collection is not clear. 

3. There is no consistency in writing. For Example, In the text, it is written male and female while in the table it is men and women.

4. Please provide the number of male and female participants in the table so the reader can understand the % in the table. Also, provide footnotes for explaining %. 

5. Authors have mentioned limitations but not strengths of the   

   study. Please mention it. 

6. The definition of Urban-rural and semi-urban areas is not clear. 

7. The calculation of cumulative risk is not clear. Please provide Step-by-step methods.

8. 0-79 years. Can you clarify on this age group? How 0 years is related to TRC?

9. Why authors focused on place of residence but not age and other demographic factors? ( See tables)

10. It is not clear how incidence rate were computed in this study?

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 27 2024 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:

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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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Umesh Raj Aryal, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments :

1. Though cigarette consumption is decreasing in Nepal, smokeless tobacco users are increasing in Nepal. How will your paper contribute to reducing such a burden? Explain introduction.

2. The method needs to be extended. It means providing in detail. The time period of Data collection is not clear.

3. There is no consistency in writing. For Example, In the text, it is written male and female while in the table it is men and women.

4. Please provide the number of male and female participants in the table so the reader can understand the % in the table. Also, provide footnotes for explaining %.

5. Authors have mentioned limitations but not strengths of the

study. Please mention it.

6. The definition of Urban-rural and semi-urban areas is not clear.

7. The calculation of cumulative risk is not clear. Please provide Step-by-step methods.

8. 0-79 years. Can you clarify on this age group? How 0 years is related to TRC?

9. Why authors focused on place of residence but not age and other demographic factors? ( See tables)

10. It is not clear how incidence rate were computed in this study?

[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

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: I Don't Know

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

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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: Yes

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: The submitted paper has important information in the policy making level. The author need to address the following points:

- Title: Instead of writing result from the population based..... it would be good to write findings.

- Introduction: Delete space between reference and full stop at Line 30. In the title you have mentioned burden of tobacco however there is no any literature supporting point in introduction and rational

- Methodology: Recruitment criteria are not clearly defined, what was the sampling technique? It would be good to write the operational definition of Urban and semi-urban.

Results: Data with demographic details and the prevalence with age, region, factors would be very helpful for the readers.

Discussion: Two sentence from174 to 176 are not clear. Lung cancer in Nepal.....

Reviewer #2: Queries

- Can you mention the sample age group in the methodology section?

- What are the exclusion criteria in the study?

- Can you mention the study site and study time? How many hospitals were involved?

- Were there any biases in the secondary data?

- How did you differentiate the data for rural and urban regions?

- How can you be sure to generalize the result?

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Comments

- Citations are missing in some parts (for example, in the discussion)

- There are lots of grammatical, typographical, and syntax errors.

- Uppercase and lowercase need to be corrected including punctuation.

- Lots of abbreviations and full forms need to be addressed. (for example, full form for NCDs, SSDM, GLOBOCON, etc)

- Sentences are not clear and need to be restructured. (for example, line 129, etc)

Reviewer #3: Line number 19 in abstract section, lung, mouth, esophageal and larynx cancer are the top 4 cancer, NOT TOP 5 TRC in Nepal.

Please mention what mouth includes in your paper(lips,tongue,buccal cavity), this will clarify the readers. Does mouth cancer also include tongue cancer in a whole?

Line 29, it would be nice to add predictions for upcoming years rather than past years.

line 99, Please arrange the sentence and make it more meaningful to the readers.

Please clarify what tobacco related cancer means in introduction? What form of tobacco use does TRC include? If it includes smoking and oral forms both, then do mention it.

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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: Yes: Bishnu Dutta Acharya

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: review PONE-D-23-32604.docx

PONE-D-23-32604R1Burden of tobacco-related cancers in urban, semi-urban and rural setting of Nepal: findings from population-based cancer registries 2019PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. KAFLE DAHAL,

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 Mar 30 2024 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,

Umesh Raj Aryal, PhD

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:

needs to address further comments by reviewers

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

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 #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: 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 #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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 #4: No

Reviewer #5: 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 #4: No

Reviewer #5: 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 #4: 1. Please add research gaps at the end of the introduction.

2. Methods need to be elaborated:

a. Sampling (size and Techniques)

b. Data collection instruments

c. Maintenance of Ethical Issues on aspect of the respondents.

d. Add operational definitions of urban, semi-urban and rural.

e. Add dependent and independent variables.

f. Add patient identification time from the registry.

3. Results:

a. Add table or figure number after the paragraph of result section.

b. Make footnote regarding the short text and analysis technique mentioned ion the tables.

4. Add strengths of the study.

Reviewer #5: The study is completely secondary and different parts from study has been published earlier. Authors has well presented the findings. Manuscript can be published based on publication criteria of Plos One.

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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 #4: Yes: Dr. Bilkis Banu

Reviewer #5: No

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[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.

Burden of tobacco-related cancers in urban, semi-urban and rural setting of Nepal: findings from population-based cancer registries 2019

PONE-D-23-32604R2

Dear Kafle,

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,

Umesh Raj Aryal, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

None

Reviewers' comments:

None