PONE-D-23-25184Development of automatic generation system for lung nodule finding descriptionsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Momoki,

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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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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: Dear Authors and Editors

I had the pleasure to review this very interesting manuscript by Momoki et al. on the development of automatic generation system to characterize and describe lung nodule according to radiological features.

The paper is overall very well-written even it is focused on a cross topic between radiology, physic, and bioengineering.

I have not found any major concerns or issues since it is a very thorough description of an innovative system designed with the aim of help the radiologists rather than replace them.

I have just some questions to the authors that should be solved.

1) Which were the inclusion criteria of all the radiology reports (known lung nodules, oncologic history, screening CT, etc.) ?

2) Regarding the bronchopulmonary segments’ prediction, have the author evaluated the system on patients with previous lung resection, with lesions involving two or more lobes or in cases of pulmonary atelectasis or Azygos lobe?

3) Have the author evaluated the presence of any anatomical features that could improve the match of the report as the presence of complete fissures.

4) Have the authors compared the description of the lung nodule with eventual pathological features?

5) In the same way, is it possible evaluate the system by adding the time evolution of the same lung nodule in order to better distinguish benign lesions from the malignant ones?

Reviewer #2: I am pleased to have the opportunity to review this paper.

I would congratulate the authors could develop novel and helpful automatic generation system for lung nodule finding descriptions.

The process of developing the system and its structure are described very precisely in the manuscript, and the efficacy of the system is likely to be evaluated in a proper manner.

However, I think the technical descriptions regarding the system construction, or the evaluation may be too complicated for general readers.

Therefore, I strongly request that they should be revised to be more understandable for many readers.

Additionally, I have several questions about the study.

In various deep learning process, on what basis was the sample size determined?

In line 262, the experiments were performed 5 times. In line 270, the experiments were performed 7 times. What is the difference between 2 sentences?

Other minor points of my concern are as follows.

Line 93 autors→authors

Please correct.

Regarding the slice thickness in table1, the scale is centimeter (cm).

Is it correct?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Development of automatic generation system for lung nodule finding descriptions

PONE-D-23-25184R1

Dear Dr. Momoki,

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,

Vittorio Aprile

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear Author

I really appreciated the big effort made to modify the text according to the reviewer's advice.