Comparison of adult versus elderly patients with abdominal trauma: A retrospective database analysis

Jeremy Dash; Elisabeth Andereggen; Imad Bentellis; Damien Massalou

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0309174

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 16, 2024
17 Jun 2024 Decision Letter - Yusuke Tsutsumi, 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-24-11676Comparison of adult versus elderly patients with abdominal trauma: a retrospective database analysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dash, 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 Aug 01 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. 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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. We note that you have indicated that there are restrictions to data sharing for this study. For studies involving human research participant data or other sensitive data, we encourage authors to share de-identified or anonymized data. However, when data cannot be publicly shared for ethical reasons, we allow authors to make their data sets available upon request. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Before we proceed with your manuscript, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., a Research Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board, etc.). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. You also have the option of uploading the data as Supporting Information files, but we would recommend depositing data directly to a data repository if possible. Please update your Data Availability statement in the submission form accordingly. [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: No Reviewer #2: No ****** 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: - Why is there no data available from 2019 till present date keeping in mind that the number of patients in the elderly group is quite low and there are only short-term outcome paramters analyzed? - Data on the pattern of abdominal trauma is missing (e. g. how many splenic, hepatic or renal injuries appeared in the corresponding groups) - Has there been interventional treatments in the analyzed patient collective e. g. coiling of splenic arteries which prevented the patient from surgical treatment? - If data from certain parameters like vital signs are missing and patients were included in the study anyways, a number of patients analyzed for each group and paramter should be given (e. g. how many patients were analyzed regarding systolic blood pressure in the YG an EG). Reviewer #2: Dear authors Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this interesting manuscript. This theme is very important. Your manuscript is well written. So I have only one comment. Methods: Not multivariate but multivariable analyses. It is the same for the after section. “The multivariate analyses was adjusted to the following factors (age, penetrating injuries, shock, GCS, SBP, DBP, hb, arterial lactates, abdominal and thoracic AIS and ISS). We used the R statistical software to perform statistical analysis.” Hidalgo B, Goodman M. Multivariate or Multivariable Regression? Am J Public Health. 2013;103(1):39-40. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.300897 ****** 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: No 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/. 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.0309174.r001
Revision 1
9 Jul 2024 Author Response Journal 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 Response : • Continuous line numbers have been added. • Page numbers appears now on the lower left hand corner. • Figure citations have been corrected. • Other manuscript body formatting guidelines have been double checked according to the modified April 2017 Manuscript body formatting guidelines document. • Affiliation footnotes on title page has been modified according to the modified January 2017 Title,author, affiliations formatting guidelines document. 2. We note that you have indicated that there are restrictions to data sharing for this study. For studies involving human research participant data or other sensitive data, we encourage authors to share de-identified or anonymized data. However, when data cannot be publicly shared for ethical reasons, we allow authors to make their data sets available upon request. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Response : We fully support the principles of transparency and data sharing in scientific research. However, the data used in our study includes sensitive information such as patient age, mechanism of trauma, year of the trauma, injuries and the length of stay in two recognizable hospitals. Due to the nature of these data points, there is a risk that individuals could be identifiable, thereby compromising patient confidentiality and privacy. Our research adheres to stringent ethical guidelines and complies with the privacy regulations set forth by our institutions and the New Federal Act on Data Protection in Switzerland and the General Data Protection Regulation in France. These regulations impose strict limitations on the sharing of personal health information to protect patient privacy. While we are unable to share the raw data publicly, we are committed to ensuring the transparency and reproducibility of our research. To this end, we can provide the contact information to which data requests may be sent : For the Geneva University Hospital registry : Dr Axel Gamulin Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève Rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil 4 1211 Genève axel.gamulin@hcuge.ch 0041223723311 Commission cantonale d'éthique de la recherche CCER Rue Adrien-Lachenal 8 1207 Genève 0041 22 546 51 01 ccer@etat.ge.ch www.ge.ch/lc/ccer For the Nice registry (REGISTRY CIL n°272) : Dr Damien MASSALOU Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice Voie Romaine 30 CS 51069 - 06001 Nice Cedex 1 massalou.d@chu-nice.fr 0033663269264 / 0033492038614 Non-author point of contact : Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés 3 Place de Fontenoy TSA 80715 75334 PARIS CEDEX 07 0033153732222 Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1 : 1. Why is there no data available from 2019 till present date keeping in mind that the number of patients in the elderly group is quite low and there are only short-term outcome paramters analyzed? Response : We acknowledge the concern regarding the data timeframe and the size of the elderly patient group. The data presented in our study were collected in 2020. At that time, we had access to patient records up until the end of 2019. Unfortunately, due to institutional and administrative constraints, we did not have access to more recent data beyond 2019 during our study period. We believe the revisions and responses provided have significantly improved the manuscript. We hope the reviewers find our responses satisfactory and that the manuscript is now suitable for publication. We appreciate your interest in longer-term outcome parameters. The scope of our study was limited by the information available in our registries, which did not contain long-term follow-up data. Our registries are primarily designed for short-term outcome tracking, which includes immediate and early postoperative results. Unfortunately, they do not extend to longer-term outcomes. We understand the importance of long-term data in providing a more comprehensive view of patient outcomes. As part of our future research initiatives, we plan to enhance our data collection methods to include longer-term follow-up information, provided we can secure the necessary resources and ethical approvals. 2. Data on the pattern of abdominal trauma is missing (e. g. how many splenic, hepatic or renal injuries appeared in the corresponding groups) Response : We have added the relevant data in the results section of the manuscript. The data regarding the number of patients suffering from splenic, hepatic and renal injuries and the occurrence of splenectomy and embolisation in both the elderly and younger groups, and the corresponding statistical analysis have been detailed. 3. -If data from certain parameters like vital signs are missing and patients were included in the study anyways, a number of patients analyzed for each group and paramter should be given (e. g. how many patients were analyzed regarding systolic blood pressure in the YG an EG). We added in the method paragraph the number of patients with missing values. Reviewer #2 : 1. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this interesting manuscript. This theme is very important. Your manuscript is well written. So I have only one comment. Methods: Not multivariate but multivariable analyses. It is the same for the after section. “The multivariate analyses was adjusted to the following factors (age, penetrating injuries, shock, GCS, SBP, DBP, hb, arterial lactates, abdominal and thoracic AIS and ISS). We used the R statistical software to perform statistical analysis.” Hidalgo B, Goodman M. Multivariate or Multivariable Regression? Am J Public Health. 2013;103(1):39-40. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.300897 Response : We have corrected " -variate " to " -variable ". Thank you for your comment and for recommending the interesting article that explains the difference and highlights the confusion between the two terms. Thank you for your consideration. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309174.r002
19 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Yusuke Tsutsumi, Editor PONE-D-24-11676R1Comparison of adult versus elderly patients with abdominal trauma: a retrospective database analysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dash, 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 Sep 02 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, Yusuke Tsutsumi 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: I (the editor) have reviewed the revised manuscript for the points raised by Reviewer 1. 1. I found the lack of recent data was important problem, while I understand the restricted access to the data. Therefore, I strongly recommend to describe how this lack of up-to-date data affects the results in the Limitation section. 2.I think the manuscript have been much improved by including details of abdominal trauma in Table 3. However, the contents of Table 3 are inconsistent. For spleen injury, there is the information about the treatment (splenectomy, embolization). However, for the other two injuries, there is no information about treatments. For kidney injury, there is no information of AAST score. Please revise the contents. 3. Additionally, the layout of Table 3 is confusing, in which, injury site, AAST score and treatments are all arranged as same level of rows. Please revise the design of Table 3 using sub-headings. 4. As just a minor point, I think the last table is Table 5 not Table 4 (there are two Table 4s). Please revise. [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 #2: 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 #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? 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 #2: 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 #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 #2: I have no comment now. ****** 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 #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/. 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.0309174.r003
Revision 2
5 Aug 2024 Author Response Journal Requirements: 1. 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. Response : All references have been reviewed. Reference number 8 (Sasser SM, Hunt RC, Faul M, Sugerman D, Pearson WS, Dulski T, Galli RL. Guidelines for field triage of injured patients: recommendations of the National Expert Panel on Field Triage, 2011. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Recommendations and Reports. 2012 Jan 13;61(1):1-20) : we noted that there is a more recent version reported by The American College of Surgeons. However there is no modification regarding the recommandation that patients over 65 with systolic blood pressure under 110 mmHg should be considered at high risk for serious injury and transported to the highest-level trauma centre. The updated reference is : Newgard CD, Fischer PE, Gestring M, Michaels HN, Jurkovich GJ, Lerner EB, Fallat ME, Delbridge TR, Brown JB, Bulger EM. National guideline for the field triage of injured patients: recommendations of the National Expert Panel on Field Triage, 2021. Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. 2022 Aug 1;93(2):e49-60. All other references have been checked and none has been retracted. Additional Editor Comments: 1. I found the lack of recent data was important problem, while I understand the restricted access to the data. Therefore, I strongly recommend to describe how this lack of up-to-date data affects the results in the Limitation section. Response : We acknowledge that the restricted access to more current data is an important issue, and we have discussed how this limitation may affect the results and their applicability to current clinical practices in the Limitations section. 2.I think the manuscript have been much improved by including details of abdominal trauma in Table 3. However, the contents of Table 3 are inconsistent. For spleen injury, there is the information about the treatment (splenectomy, embolization). However, for the other two injuries, there is no information about treatments. For kidney injury, there is no information of AAST score. Please revise the contents. Response : The content has been revised and we added the missing values and discussed the results. 3. Additionally, the layout of Table 3 is confusing, in which, injury site, AAST score and treatments are all arranged as same level of rows. Please revise the design of Table 3 using sub-headings. Response : The design of Table 3 has been changed using sub-headings. Missing value have been added. 4. As just a minor point, I think the last table is Table 5 not Table 4 (there are two Table 4s). Please revise. Response : Correction has been made. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309174.r004
7 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Yusuke Tsutsumi, Editor Comparison of adult versus elderly patients with abdominal trauma: a retrospective database analysis PONE-D-24-11676R2 Dear Dr. Dash, 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, Yusuke Tsutsumi Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309174.r005
Formally Accepted
9 Aug 2024 Acceptance Letter - Yusuke Tsutsumi, Editor PONE-D-24-11676R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dash, 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. Yusuke Tsutsumi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309174.r006

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