Shifting temporal trends and disparities in sarcoidosis mortality in the United States: A retrospective analysis from 1999 to 2020

Fatima Ali Raza; Sumeet Kumar; Ayesha Mohammad; Areej Amin; Farooq Ahmad; Sohaib Tousif; Urwah Kamran; Lamea Bint Sahab; Sajjad Ali; Mah I. Kan Changez; Aman Goyal

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0317237

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 9, 2024
1 Dec 2024 Decision Letter - Amr Ehab El-Qushayri, Editor PONE-D-24-50326Disparities in Mortality from Sarcoidosis by Age, Gender, Ethnoracial Background, and Housing Status: A Retrospective Analysis from 1999 to 2020PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Changez, 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 Jan 15 2025 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. 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If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.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 would like to congratulate the authors for this good paper. I have some comments to be addressed by the authors: 1-You included 2020 in your study and reflected it on COVID-19 pandemic. What is the last date of the recruitment period in 2020? As WHO declared the pandemic in March 2020. 2-If you have the cause of death, it would be worth noting to report it to exclude if it is COVID-19 related or not, as well as, to know the trends of causes of death. If you can not access it, it is not recommended to report that it is related to COVID-19 directly or indirectly. 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 is well-structured and well-analyzed and provides paramount results. The figures are greatly depicted and are structured and clear. The Discussion section is comprehensive and offers a detailed analysis. Furthermore, the study's limitations are effectively addressed. General comments: Strengths: 1: Conclusion part is appropriately detailed and comprehensive. And provides a full overview of the whole article. 2: Additionally, limitations of the study are provided in a separate and dedicated section, which is highly informative. Minor revision points: 3: Clarity of Figures 1-6, while informative, could benefit from more detailed explanations and consistent formatting to improve readability. 4: It is advised to incorporate an additional section following the conclusion to clearly define and list all abbreviations used in the article. Thanks to the authors for their hard work on this Study. It’s a pleasure to review such a contribution to the field. Reviewer #2: Overall it's a well written paper and easy to understand. There is not much comment from me except to suggest to put all the figures after the description text. eg. figure 1 should be following the text for sarcoidosis related AAMR stratified by gender. ****** 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: SEYED AMIRHOSSEIN MAZHARI 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Review 29.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317237.r001
Revision 1
9 Dec 2024 Author Response Dear Respectful Editor and Reviewers, Thank you for your feedback on our manuscript titled “Shifting Temporal Trends and Disparities in Sarcoidosis Mortality in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis from 1999 to 2020.” We appreciate your recognition of the study's strengths and the valuable insights you provided. Below we are attaching our in-depth response to each query by the reviewers: Editor’s Comments: I would like to congratulate the authors for this good paper. I have some comments to be addressed by the authors: 1-You included 2020 in your study and reflected it on COVID-19 pandemic. What is the last date of the recruitment period in 2020? As WHO declared the pandemic in March 2020. 2-If you have the cause of death, it would be worth noting to report it to exclude if it is COVID-19 related or not, as well as, to know the trends of causes of death. If you can not access it, it is not recommended to report that it is related to COVID-19 directly or indirectly. -> Dear Editor, The CDC Wonder database includes data up to the end of each calendar year, with 2020 data extending through the last day of December. However, as per your appropriate suggestion in point 2, the CDC Wonder database does not provide information on causes of death. Accordingly, we have removed any direct or indirect mentions of COVID-19 as a cause, as well as references to it in any hypothesis statements. We would be happy to make any further changes you suggest. We have added this to our discussion, instead of the COVID-19 hypothesis: “One possible reason for this recent inflection point could be variations in the coding practices for sarcoidosis-related mortality by physicians, as well as an increased rate of diagnosis and documentation of mortality facilitated by advanced imaging modalities such as high-resolution computed tomography and positron emission tomography scans [19]. Furthermore, despite advancements in therapeutics, adequate management for advanced fibrocystic cases remains unavailable [20], which may further contribute to our findings. Further prospective studies with standard guidelines need to be developed to manage more complex cases of sarcoidosis. Sex disparities were notable, with women generally experiencing higher mortality rates than men, except during the stabilization period, possibly due to hormonal factors [21]. We hypothesize that the sharp increase in mortality among men during 2018-2020 may relate to delayed diagnosis and higher baseline comorbidity rates, and increased vulnerability during the pandemic [22]. To better understand these shifting trends, further research is essential. Cohort studies comparing outcomes between patients with and without COVID-19, along with investigations into healthcare access and treatment continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic, are critical. These efforts will help determine whether the observed mortality increase and the shifting disparities—such as higher mortality in non-metropolitan areas—are partly attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic or other factors. Ultimately, this research will guide targeted interventions to improve outcomes for sarcoidosis patients.” 2. Review Comments to the Author 2.1. Reviewer #1: The manuscript is well-structured and well-analyzed and provides paramount results. The figures are greatly depicted and are structured and clear. The Discussion section is comprehensive and offers a detailed analysis. Furthermore, the study's limitations are effectively addressed.  Strengths:  1: Conclusion part is appropriately detailed and comprehensive. And provides a full overview of the whole article.  2: Additionally, limitations of the study are provided in a separate and dedicated section, which is highly informative.  Minor revision points:  3: Clarity of Figures 1-6, while informative, could benefit from more detailed explanations and consistent formatting to improve readability. -> Dear reviewer, as per your suggestion, we have now added more detail into the figure caption for each figure in the Figure Legend section of our manuscript after the References.   4: It is advised to incorporate an additional section following the conclusion to clearly define and list all abbreviations used in the article. -> Dear reviewer, a new subheader after the conclusion section for Abbreviations has been created as per your suggestion.   Thanks to the authors for their hard work on this Study. It’s a pleasure to review such a contribution to the field. -> Dear Reviewer, thank you for your thoughtful comments regarding the strength and novelty of our manuscript. 2.2. Reviewer #2: Overall it's a well written paper and easy to understand. There is not much comment from me except to suggest to put all the figures after the description text. eg. figure 1 should be following the text for sarcoidosis related AAMR stratified by gender. -> Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestions. We have added all figures separately as TIFF file in the editorial manager as per the journal’s requirement. However, we have provided the figure caption right after the text, and an additional figure legend at end of the manuscript as per your suggestion. Thank you, Mah I Kan Changez, MBBS Yale University Mahikan.changez@yale.edu Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: R2R PONE R1 Sarcoidosis.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317237.r002
22 Dec 2024 Decision Letter - Amr Ehab El-Qushayri, Editor PONE-D-24-50326R1Shifting Temporal Trends and Disparities in Sarcoidosis Mortality in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis from 1999 to 2020PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Changez, 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 Feb 05 2025 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, Amr Ehab El-Qushayri 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. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #3: (No Response) ******** 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 Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #3: 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: Some Minor revisions points have been suggested and they all have been addressed appropriately. Minor revision points: Thanks to the authors for their hard work on this Revision. It’s a pleasure to review such a contribution to the field. Reviewer #3: I appreciate your response to the editor’s suggestion regarding the deletion of content related to COVID-19 mortality. However, I noticed that this content is still present in the abstract and keywords. I recommend that you replace it in these sections as you did in the manuscript and remove it from the keywords, as it is not central to the core of the research. Additionally, on page 8, you used the abbreviation “AAPC.” If this was intended to be “APC,” please correct it. If not, kindly provide an explanation for “AAPC” in the abbreviation list. Thank you for your efforts. ****** 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: SEYED AMIRHOSSEIN MAZHARI Reviewer #3: 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Review 29a.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317237.r003
Revision 2
23 Dec 2024 Author Response Dear Respectful Editor and Reviewers, Thank you for your feedback on our manuscript titled “Shifting Temporal Trends and Disparities in Sarcoidosis Mortality in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis from 1999 to 2020.” We appreciate your recognition of the study's strengths and the valuable insights you provided. Below we are attaching our in-depth response to each query by the reviewers: Reviewer #1: Some Minor revisions points have been suggested and they all have been addressed appropriately. Minor revision points: Thanks to the authors for their hard work on this Revision. It’s a pleasure to review such a contribution to the field. -> Dear Reviewer, Thank you for your suggestions and for your feedback that the work is ready for publication. Reviewer #3: I appreciate your response to the editor’s suggestion regarding the deletion of content related to COVID-19 mortality. However, I noticed that this content is still present in the abstract and keywords. I recommend that you replace it in these sections as you did in the manuscript and remove it from the keywords, as it is not central to the core of the research. Additionally, on page 8, you used the abbreviation “AAPC.” If this was intended to be “APC,” please correct it. If not, kindly provide an explanation for “AAPC” in the abbreviation list. Thank you for your efforts. -> Dear Reviewer, We have updated the Abstract and removed the COVID-19 section to reflect the changes made during the Round 1 revisions, which we had inadvertently omitted from the submission portal. Additionally, we have revised the keywords and changed “AAPC” to “APC” in accordance with your comments. Thank you for your valuable feedback. Please let us know if you’d like any further changes. Thank you, Mah I Kan Changez, MBBS Yale University Mahikan.changez@yale.edu Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: R2R PONE R2 Sarcoidosis.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317237.r004
26 Dec 2024 Decision Letter - Amr Ehab El-Qushayri, Editor Shifting Temporal Trends and Disparities in Sarcoidosis Mortality in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis from 1999 to 2020 PONE-D-24-50326R2 Dear Dr. Mah I Kan Changez, 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, Amr Ehab El-Qushayri Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317237.r005
Formally Accepted
31 Dec 2024 Acceptance Letter - Amr Ehab El-Qushayri, Editor PONE-D-24-50326R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Changez, 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. Amr Ehab El-Qushayri Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317237.r006

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