Smoking is associated with higher risk of contracting bacterial infection and pneumonia, intensive care unit admission and death

Karl Stattin; Mikael Eriksson; Robert Frithiof; Rafael Kawati; Douglas Crockett; Michael Hultström; Miklos Lipcsey

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0302505

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 1, 2024
1 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Ignacio Garitano-Gutierrez, Editor Transfer Alert This paper was transferred from another journal. As a result, its full editorial history (including decision letters, peer reviews and author responses) may not be present. PONE-D-24-06732Current and former smoking is associated with higher risk of contracting bacterial infection and pneumonia, intensive care unit admission and deathPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Stattin, 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. ============================== Dear Authors, Thanks for the interesting conduct of the two cohorts follow up study on smoking status and infections incidence, ICU admission and death. As you clearly state within the limitations paragraph, smoking status was ascertained at the beginning of the period and status could have changed over the period; a more worrying aspect to me is that authors state ( even in the title) that "Current and former smoking is associated with higher risk of contracting bacterial infection and pneumonia, intensive care unit admission and death"; if we are strict, what moment does current smoking refer to? I guess that to the moment when the outcome happens, is it correct? If death or pneumonia or any infection or ICU admission happens, this event is analyzed according to self declared smoking status at the beginning of the period, hence the word "current smoker" does not apply to an event taking place, let us imagine, in 2005 and smoking status has been asked in 1997. If authors manage to display their results without falling into this inaccuracy in the way the express the exposure and the results, I would recommend to publish this piece of research. Please take into account also the reviewers comments. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by May 16 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. 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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, Ignacio Garitano-Gutierrez, M.D., MSc., EPIET. 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. Please provide a complete Data Availability Statement in the submission form, ensuring you include all necessary access information or a reason for why you are unable to make your data freely accessible. If your research concerns only data provided within your submission, please write "All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files" as your Data Availability Statement. 3. 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, Thanks for the interesting conduct of the two cohorts follow up study on smoking status and infections incidence, ICU admission and death. As you clearly state within the limitations paragraph, smoking status was ascertained at the beginning of the period and status could have changed over the period; a more worrying aspect to me is that authors state ( even in the title) that "Current and former smoking is associated with higher risk of contracting bacterial infection and pneumonia, intensive care unit admission and death"; if we are strict, what moment does current smoking refer to? I guess that to the moment when the outcome happens, is it correct? If death or pneumonia or any infection or ICU admission happens, this event is analyzed according to self declared smoking status at the beginning of the period, hence the word "current smoker" does not apply to an event taking place, let us imagine, in 2005 and smoking status has been asked in 1997. If authors manage to display their results without falling in this inaccuracy in the way the express the exposure and the results, I would recommend to publish this piece of research. Please take into account also the reviewers comments. [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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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 manuscript clearly describes the origin of the data collected, with big sample record achieved from two strong national databases, representative of the population they intended to study; the size is appropiate, meeting statistically significant results. The statistical analysis is well explained, following the main objectives of the research. Differences between the results of previous publications on the topic have been described, explaining the source of disagreements. The conclusion is supported by the results shown at the manuscript. Reviewer #2: Congratulations for the work done. This is a very interesting study, which investigates the influence of current and previous tobacco consumption on the development and clinical course of respiratory infection and pneumonia. The article deserves to be published, and I would only make two suggestions for modification: On the one hand, in the abstract, it appears that the risk of admission to ICU is analyzed. This point is met in the full article, but not in the abstract, so I think it should be removed from the abstract, or include this data in it. On the other hand, this study is carried out in a sample that represents the Swedish population. It may be that in other populations this same pattern does not hold true, and it should be mentioned among the limitations of the study. With these two small changes, the article could be published. ****** 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: Diego Manzano Moratinos Reviewer #2: 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/. 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Revision 1
4 Apr 2024 Author Response Dear Editor, We would like to thank the Editor for the opportunity to improve our manuscript and the Reviewers for their kind and insightful comments. We have made adjustments throughout the manuscript in accordance with the suggestions, which we hope are satisfactory. Please see attached manuscript with changes highlighted. Sincerely, The authors, through Karl Stattin Dear Authors, Thanks for the interesting conduct of the two cohorts follow up study on smoking status and infections incidence, ICU admission and death. As you clearly state within the limitations paragraph, smoking status was ascertained at the beginning of the period and status could have changed over the period; a more worrying aspect to me is that authors state ( even in the title) that "Current and former smoking is associated with higher risk of contracting bacterial infection and pneumonia, intensive care unit admission and death"; if we are strict, what moment does current smoking refer to? I guess that to the moment when the outcome happens, is it correct? If death or pneumonia or any infection or ICU admission happens, this event is analyzed according to self declared smoking status at the beginning of the period, hence the word "current smoker" does not apply to an event taking place, let us imagine, in 2005 and smoking status has been asked in 1997. If authors manage to display their results without falling into this inaccuracy in the way the express the exposure and the results, I would recommend to publish this piece of research. Please take into account also the reviewers comments. We agree. The wording is problematic as smoking status may indeed have changed during follow-up and it is unclear what timepoint “current” refers to. The title has been changed to "Smoking is associated with higher risk of contracting bacterial infection and pneumonia, intensive care unit admission and death", and the manuscript has been altered throughout to reflect that "current smoking" refers to ongoing smoking at baseline in 1997. Reviewer #1: The manuscript clearly describes the origin of the data collected, with big sample record achieved from two strong national databases, representative of the population they intended to study; the size is appropiate, meeting statistically significant results. The statistical analysis is well explained, following the main objectives of the research. Differences between the results of previous publications on the topic have been described, explaining the source of disagreements. The conclusion is supported by the results shown at the manuscript. Thank you for your kind words. Reviewer #2: Congratulations for the work done. This is a very interesting study, which investigates the influence of current and previous tobacco consumption on the development and clinical course of respiratory infection and pneumonia. The article deserves to be published, and I would only make two suggestions for modification: On the one hand, in the abstract, it appears that the risk of admission to ICU is analyzed. This point is met in the full article, but not in the abstract, so I think it should be removed from the abstract, or include this data in it. Good point. The abstract is unfortunately already at the word limit. “ICU admission” is thus removed from the aims in the abstract to improve consistency. On the other hand, this study is carried out in a sample that represents the Swedish population. It may be that in other populations this same pattern does not hold true, and it should be mentioned among the limitations of the study. With these two small changes, the article could be published. Indeed. This has been added as a limitation to the discussion section: “Although the cohorts are representative of the Swedish population, results may not be applicable to other populations.” Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302505.r002
8 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Ignacio Garitano-Gutierrez, Editor Smoking is associated with higher risk of contracting bacterial infection and pneumonia, intensive care unit admission and death PONE-D-24-06732R1 Dear Dr. Stattin, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Ignacio Garitano-Gutierrez, M.D., MSc., EPIET. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302505.r003

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