Risk assessment and clinical implications of COVID-19 in multiple myeloma patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Sultan Mahmud; Md. Faruk Hossain; Abdul Muyeed; Shaila Nazneen; Md. Ashraful Haque; Harun Mazumder; Md Mohsin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0308463

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 2, 2024
7 Jun 2024 Decision Letter - Abhinava Kumar Mishra, Editor PONE-D-24-17495Risk Assessment and Clinical Implications of COVID-19 in Multiple Myeloma Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-AnalysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Mahmud, 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. ============================== The manuscript has undergone thorough review, and the feedback from the reviewers is enclosed with this letter. Two specialist reviewers in the field have identified several critical areas requiring major revisions. Overall, while the study addresses an important topic and presents valuable data, there are significant issues related to the clarity, methodological rigor, and completeness of the presented information. The study's quality and robustness could be greatly improved by providing clearer methodological details, enhancing the presentation of figures, and ensuring comprehensive data analysis, including sensitivity analyses and risk factor meta-analyses. Additionally, the manuscript would benefit from a more consistent use of terminology and thorough validation of key experimental components. Addressing these issues will enhance the study’s credibility and impact. Editors would be happy to consider the revised version for publication. When revising, address all points raised and outline every change made, or provide a suitable rebuttal if you disagree with any comments. Best, Dr. Abhinava K. Mishra Academic Editor ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 22 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. 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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 amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author Dr. Md Faruk Hossain. 3. Please amend your authorship list in your manuscript file to include author Dr. Sultan Faruk Mahmud. [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: Partly 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: Thank you for this important work. Please find my suggestions below: Why are there up to three references for PRISMA? How do the first two constitute PRISMA? Can the authors briefly describe the JBI scoring under the quality assessment section? Consider doing a leave-one-out sensitivity analysis to report the influence of each study on the pooled prevalence rates for your major outcomes. Table 3 can be taken to the supplementary file. The authors classified the available included studies into three: case series, retrospective cohort studies, and “retrospective observational studies” Can the authors define what they mean by “retrospective observational studies” since even cohort studies are also observational and can be retrospective (as in much of your included studies) or prospective, just as case series are also a type of observational studies. Please, note that Egger’s test figures are missing from the main manuscript text and supporting files. Please, reference each figure when you include them in your revision. Why have the authors not considered doing a meta-analysis on the risk factors for each of their four main outcomes (COVID-19-related hospitalization rate, ICU admission rate, mortality rate, and survival rate), especially given the fact that you stated your study’s title as “risk assessment”? Aren’t there data for such analysis from the original studies? I look forward to reading the revised version of this manuscript Reviewer #2: A great manuscript. Very comprehensive and most of analysis needed for a systematic review and meta analyses conducted well. Will possibly attract a lot of citations with the wealth of information that is being presented in this article. ****** 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: Dr Sahabi Kabir Sulaiman Reviewer #2: Yes: NAVIN KUMAR DEVARAJ ******** [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.0308463.r001
Revision 1
24 Jun 2024 Author Response Response to Reviewer #1: Reviewer point #1: Why are there up to three references for PRISMA? How do the first two constitute PRISMA? Author response #1: Thank you for catching this. We have removed these irrelevant citations from the revised manuscripts (page #2). Reviewer point #2: Can the authors briefly describe the JBI scoring under the quality assessment section? Author response #2: Thank you for your valuable suggestion. We have added more description of the JBI scoring in both the Methods section (pages 3-4) and the Results section (page 8). During the update, we noticed some discrepancies in the JBI checklist. Therefore, we rescored all the studies using the most appropriate and updated checklist (see Supporting Information S3.). Reviewer point #3: Consider doing a leave-one-out sensitivity analysis to report the influence of each study on the pooled prevalence rates for your major outcomes. Author response #3: Thank you for your insightful suggestion. We appreciate your recommendation to perform a leave-one-out sensitivity analysis to assess the influence of each study on the pooled prevalence rates for our major outcomes. This analysis will provide valuable insights into the robustness and stability of our findings. We have conducted the leave-one-out sensitivity analysis as suggested. Both the Method (Page # 3) and Result section (Page# 9, Figure 4) has been updated accordingly. Reviewer point #4: Table 3 can be taken to the supplementary file. Author response #4: Yes, we have added Table 3 as suppliementary information (S3 file). Reviewer point #5: The authors classified the available included studies into three: case series, retrospective cohort studies, and “retrospective observational studies” Can the authors define what they mean by “retrospective observational studies” since even cohort studies are also observational and can be retrospective (as in much of your included studies) or prospective, just as case series are also a type of observational studies. Author response #5: Thank you for your insightful comment. Yes, we completely agree with you the terminology is confusing as cohort studies are also observational by nature. To avoid confusion, we have revised our terminology in the revised manuscript to: • Case Series • Comparative Cohort Studies • Descriptive Cohort Studies. We have also added clear definitions of each term in the Method section (Page#4-5) as follows: • Case Series: Studies that present descriptive analysis of cases with a common characteristic, lacking a comparative group. • Comparative Cohort Studies: These studies identify a cohort (group) of individuals who share a common characteristic or exposure in the past and then look back to compare outcomes between subgroups within this cohort. They typically include a comparison group and allow for some measure of association between exposure and outcome. • Descriptive Cohort Studies: These studies analyze existing data without the formal structure of a cohort study. They often analyze data from medical records or databases to identify patterns, outcomes, and associations. Descriptive cohort studies do not involve comparing outcomes between different subgroups within the cohort. Please note that, based on the new categorization, all analyses by study type have been updated. Reviewer point #6: Please, note that Egger’s test figures are missing from the main manuscript text and supporting files. Please, reference each figure when you include them in your revision. Author response # 6: We have added a Table (Table 3) in revised manuscript (Page# 11), presenting the Egger test results. Reviewer point #7: Why have the authors not considered doing a meta-analysis on the risk factors for each of their four main outcomes (COVID-19-related hospitalization rate, ICU admission rate, mortality rate, and survival rate), especially given the fact that you stated your study’s title as “risk assessment”? Aren’t there data for such analysis from the original studies? Author response #7: Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate the suggestion to conduct a meta-analysis on the risk factors for each of our four main outcomes (COVID-19-related hospitalization rate, ICU admission rate, mortality rate, and survival rate). While we agree that such an analysis would be valuable, our primary limitation was the lack of detailed data on risk factors across the included studies. Most of the original studies did not provide sufficient information on specific risk factors. However, we have conducted subgroup analyses for study-level characteristics such as median age, proportion of men, and patients' comorbidities (hypertension, diabetes, obesity), identifying factors that may influence the outcomes of hospitalization rates, ICU admissions, mortality rates, and survival rates. In our manuscript, we aimed to highlight the available data on these outcomes and acknowledged the limitations posed by the variability and incompleteness of risk factor reporting (Page #15). We believe that addressing this gap is crucial for future research, and we have included a recommendation for more standardized and detailed reporting of risk factors in original studies in our discussion section (Page #15). Response to Reviewer #2: Reviewer point #1: A great manuscript. Very comprehensive and most of analysis needed for a systematic review and meta analyses conducted well. Will possibly attract a lot of citations with the wealth of information that is being presented in this article. Author response #1: Thank you very much for your positive feedback. We are delighted to hear that you found our manuscript comprehensive and well-conducted. We appreciate your kind words regarding the potential impact and value of our work. 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 amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author Dr. Md Faruk Hossain. 3. Please amend your authorship list in your manuscript file to include author Dr. Sultan Faruk Mahmud. Author response: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have ensured that our manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including file naming, as per the guidelines provided. The author list in the manuscript was correct; however, we have amended the manuscript submission data to fix the authorlist. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308463.r002
23 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Abhinava Kumar Mishra, Editor Risk Assessment and Clinical Implications of COVID-19 in Multiple Myeloma Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis PONE-D-24-17495R1 Dear Dr. Mahmud, 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, Abhinava Kumar Mishra, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): 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 ******** 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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: 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 #1: 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: Thank you for revising this important manuscript. After going through the revision, I can see that the manuscript has significantly improved. Looking forward to seeing the published version of this work. ****** 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: Yes: Dr Sahabi Kabir Sulaiman ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308463.r003
Formally Accepted
25 Jul 2024 Acceptance Letter - Abhinava Kumar Mishra, Editor PONE-D-24-17495R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Mahmud, 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. Abhinava Kumar Mishra Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308463.r004

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