Effect of perioperative lidocaine infusion on the subjective quality of recovery after surgery: Protocol for an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Qianli Huang; Changhui Shao; Wei Wei; Shan Ou

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0323342

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 25, 2024
25 Sep 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323342.r001
2 Feb 2025 Decision Letter - Stefano Turi, Editor PONE-D-24-41550Effect of perioperative lidocaine infusion on the subjective quality of recovery after surgery: protocol for an updated systematic review and meta-analysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wei, 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 Mar 19 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, Stefano Turi 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. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. 3. Please include a separate caption for each figure in your manuscript. 4. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Partly ******** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ****** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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 ****** 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 #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This protocol has two notable limitations that should be addressed. First, restricting inclusion to English-language publications introduces potential selection bias and may miss valuable evidence from non-English speaking regions, warranting removal of this restriction. Second, the protocol should better contextualize itself in relation to existing meta-analyses, particularly Hung et al. (PMID: 34547603), by clearly differentiating its scope, addressing identified knowledge gaps, and incorporating subgroup analyses to explore previously noted heterogeneity - these additions would strengthen the protocol's potential contribution to the evidence base while avoiding redundant investigation. Reviewer #2: The overall structure of this manuscript is relatively complete, but there are still some parts that can be optimized, as follows. 1. Please supplement the detailed search strategies for each database. 2. In the sentence "In recent years, lidocaine, an amino-amide local anesthetic agent, have been extensively investigated for its anti-nociceptive...", the subject "lidocaine" is singular, so the verb should be "has" instead of "have". 3. Inclusion and exclusion criteria: In the inclusion criteria, the classification of surgical types only differentiates between elective or emergency surgeries and general anesthesia, without considering the impact of differences in surgical sites and trauma severity on the results, which may increase the heterogeneity of the study. It is recommended to further refine the criteria related to surgical types. For example, studies could be included by classifying surgical categories such as abdominal, thoracic, and orthopedic surgeries. In the exclusion criteria, the description of "lidocaine being part of an opioid - free anesthetic technique" is rather ambiguous. Different studies may have different definitions of opioid - free anesthetic techniques. It is suggested to clearly define this criterion or explain how to judge it during the actual screening process. 4. Regarding the subgroup analysis, only the assessment of the intervention effect based on patient characteristics and primary outcomes was mentioned, but the specific grouping factors were not clearly defined. It is recommended to list possible subgroup analysis factors such as age, gender, type of surgery, etc., and explain the basis for grouping and the expected analysis objectives. 5. Discussion section: When pointing out the potential limitations of the study, issues such as heterogeneity, diversity of surgical types, and small sample size were only briefly mentioned, without in - depth exploration of how to minimize these impacts in subsequent studies. It is recommended to propose specific countermeasures for each limitation. For example, in the study design stage, how to optimize the inclusion criteria to reduce heterogeneity, and how to expand the sample size, etc. The description of the expected research results is rather general, only mentioning providing suggestions for clinical practice and research. It is recommended to clarify the specific forms of expected results, such as formulating the recommended dosage range for the perioperative use of lidocaine and a list of applicable surgical types. ****** 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: No Reviewer #2: No 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.0323342.r002
Revision 1
21 Feb 2025 Author Response Dear reviewer We have special gratitude to you, for devoting your valuable time and energy to review our work entitled “Effect of perioperative lidocaine infusion on the subjective quality of recovery after surgery: protocol for an updated systematic review and meta-analysis” for giving constructive comments and valuable guidance. In line with this, the authors had exhaustively demonstrated and addressed questions and comments raised by reviewers using point-by-point responses as stated below. Journal requirements: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. Response: We have carefully checked throughout the manuscript. 2. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have included the ethics statement in the Methods section of our manuscript. 3. Please include a separate caption for each figure in your manuscript. Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have included a separate caption for each figure in our manuscript. 4. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have included captions for our Supporting Information files at the end of our manuscript and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: This protocol has two notable limitations that should be addressed. First, restricting inclusion to English-language publications introduces potential selection bias and may miss valuable evidence from non-English speaking regions, warranting removal of this restriction. Second, the protocol should better contextualize itself in relation to existing meta-analyses, particularly Hung et al. (PMID: 34547603), by clearly differentiating its scope, addressing identified knowledge gaps, and incorporating subgroup analyses to explore previously noted heterogeneity - these additions would strengthen the protocol's potential contribution to the evidence base while avoiding redundant investigation. Response: Thank you for your suggestion. First, we have removed the restriction of English-language publication. Second, we have added this discussion about the existing meta-analyses. Reviewer #2: 1. Please supplement the detailed search strategies for each database. Response: Thank you for your feedback. We have supplemented the detailed search strategies for each database. 2. In the sentence "In recent years, lidocaine, an amino-amide local anesthetic agent, have been extensively investigated for its anti-nociceptive...", the subject "lidocaine" is singular, so the verb should be "has" instead of "have". Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have rewritten this sentence as recommended. 3. Inclusion and exclusion criteria: In the inclusion criteria, the classification of surgical types only differentiates between elective or emergency surgeries and general anesthesia, without considering the impact of differences in surgical sites and trauma severity on the results, which may increase the heterogeneity of the study. It is recommended to further refine the criteria related to surgical types. For example, studies could be included by classifying surgical categories such as abdominal, thoracic, and orthopedic surgeries. In the exclusion criteria, the description of "lidocaine being part of an opioid - free anesthetic technique" is rather ambiguous. Different studies may have different definitions of opioid - free anesthetic techniques. It is suggested to clearly define this criterion or explain how to judge it during the actual screening process. Response: Thank you for the insightful suggestion. First, we have revised the inclusion criteria as recommended. Second, we have modified the description of “lidocaine being part of an opioid - free anesthetic technique”, we appreciate your guidance. 4. Regarding the subgroup analysis, only the assessment of the intervention effect based on patient characteristics and primary outcomes was mentioned, but the specific grouping factors were not clearly defined. It is recommended to list possible subgroup analysis factors such as age, gender, type of surgery, etc., and explain the basis for grouping and the expected analysis objectives. Response: Thank you for the insightful suggestion. We have added a detailed description of the subgroup analysis for the systematic review and meta-analysis. 5. Discussion section: When pointing out the potential limitations of the study, issues such as heterogeneity, diversity of surgical types, and small sample size were only briefly mentioned, without in - depth exploration of how to minimize these impacts in subsequent studies. It is recommended to propose specific countermeasures for each limitation. For example, in the study design stage, how to optimize the inclusion criteria to reduce heterogeneity, and how to expand the sample size, etc. The description of the expected research results is rather general, only mentioning providing suggestions for clinical practice and research. It is recommended to clarify the specific forms of expected results, such as formulating the recommended dosage range for the perioperative use of lidocaine and a list of applicable surgical types. Response: Thank you for the detailed guidance. We have revised the discussion section to propose specific countermeasures for each limitation. We have also addressed potential limitations and how the findings will be interpreted and disseminated. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323342.r003
17 Mar 2025 Decision Letter - Stefano Turi, Editor PONE-D-24-41550R1Effect of perioperative lidocaine infusion on the subjective quality of recovery after surgery: protocol for an updated systematic review and meta-analysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wei, 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 May 01 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, Stefano Turi 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 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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 and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: The article has been revised very well, and I highly appreciate the efforts made by the authors. However, there is still a minor issue that needs to be addressed. Data Extraction and Analysis: The data extraction and bias risk assessment were carried out by two independent personnel, and the methodology is reasonable. In the data extraction form, an item of "specific infusion regimen of lidocaine (such as infusion rate and concentration)" can be added to enable a more comprehensive analysis of the impact of lidocaine use on the results. When conducting subgroup analysis, in addition to the factors mentioned in the article, the factor of different anesthesia methods can be considered for inclusion, because the anesthesia method may affect the efficacy of lidocaine. ****** 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.0323342.r004
Revision 2
19 Mar 2025 Author Response Dear Editors and Reviewers: Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript (PONE-D-24-41550R1). We appreciate the helpful feedback from you and the reviewers. After carefully reading the comments, we have revised the manuscript point-by-point. Herewith we resubmit a revised manuscript for your assessment. Important changes are highlighted, and detailed responses to each comment are included below. We believe that these revisions have substantially improved the manuscript, and we thank you and the reviewers for their thoughtful comments, which are really helpful for the improvement. 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. Response: Thank you! We have checked the reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. Reviewer #2: The article has been revised very well, and I highly appreciate the efforts made by the authors. However, there is still a minor issue that needs to be addressed. Data Extraction and Analysis: The data extraction and bias risk assessment were carried out by two independent personnel, and the methodology is reasonable. In the data extraction form, an item of "specific infusion regimen of lidocaine (such as infusion rate and concentration)" can be added to enable a more comprehensive analysis of the impact of lidocaine use on the results. When conducting subgroup analysis, in addition to the factors mentioned in the article, the factor of different anesthesia methods can be considered for inclusion, because the anesthesia method may affect the efficacy of lidocaine. Response: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. We have added the regimens of lidocaine infusion in the data extraction form and anesthesia methods in subgroup analysis. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response_to_Reviewers_auresp_2.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323342.r005
6 Apr 2025 Decision Letter - Stefano Turi, Editor Effect of perioperative lidocaine infusion on the subjective quality of recovery after surgery: protocol for an updated systematic review and meta-analysis PONE-D-24-41550R2 Dear Dr. Wei, 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, Stefano Turi Academic Editor PLOS ONE Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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 and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: The article is well revised, I appreciate the efforts made by the authors, and I recommend it for publication. ****** 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: Yes: Xiongfeng Huang ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323342.r006
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Stefano Turi, Editor PONE-D-24-41550R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wei, 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 You will receive further instructions from the production team, including instructions on how to review your proof when it is ready. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few days 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. Stefano Turi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323342.r007

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .