Peer Review History
Original SubmissionSeptember 7, 2021 |
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PONE-D-21-28808How Informative Were Early SARS-CoV-2 Treatment and Prevention Trials? A longitudinal cohort analysis of trials registered on clinicaltrials.govPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Waligora, 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 Dec 17 2021 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:
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Kind regards, Dylan A Mordaunt, MB ChB, FRACP, FAIDH 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 2. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section: “Marcin Waligora reports personal fees from Advisory Bioethics Council, Sanofi outside the submitted work. Other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.” Please confirm that this does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, by including the following statement: "This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests). If there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared. Please include your updated Competing Interests statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Additional Editor Comments: Thank you for your submission in a format that is considered for publication in PLoS One. The reviewers have included a number of useful recommendations for revision of the manuscript. With reference to the publication for criteria: 1. The study appears to represent the results of original meta-research. If there have been similar studies before or since, it would be worth commenting on these for completeness. 2. Results do not appear to have been published elsewhere. 3. Experiments, statistics, and other analyses require some work. These are detailed by reviewer 1, 3 and 4. 4. Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data. The reviewers don't comment on the conclusions, however I agree with the comment on expanding on narrative synthesis in the discussion. 5. The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English. 6. The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. 7. The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability. Without exhaustively detailing them here, it would be helpful to have the manuscript follow standardised reporting structures- although there may not be one specific to this study type, ones that relate to systematic reviews of observational studies or observational studies more generally, would be helpful such as PRISMA and AMSTAR-2. Specific features such as whether the protocol was prospectively registered, where it was registered, the detail of how duplicate assessment occurred etc., should be included. In that specific example, it may be worth addressing in the response if the protocol wasn't prospectively addressed, so that it could be taken into account in future meta-research. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Partly Reviewer #4: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: 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 Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: 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 Reviewer #3: Yes Reviewer #4: 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: General comment This seems to me a very important study worthy of publication. The paper underlines how important it is that trials are conducted by appropriately supported centres with experience of conducting trials. However, although the study compares the properties between groups within features, for example, Multicentre v Single Centre, the difference between them should be presented together with the 95% CI of that difference (see below). Specific comments 1. Page 10, Table 1: Probably more informative if the row Phase 2c is spilt into two rows one for Phase 1 and a second for Phase 2. Also confusing as how in row Phase 3d the Phase 2 components mentioned differ from those in row Phase 2c. There is some confusion here and consequently on Page 10, line 7, where the authors state: “of 210 Phase 2/3 and Phase 3 trials”, it remains unclear as to what this group actually comprises. 2. Page 10, Table 1 think the actual range (minimum and maximum values), rather than IQR of the anticipated recruitment and actual enrolment, would be much more informative. Also, in the written text above on Page 9. 3. Page 12, Table 2 footnote c) “Age of participants � 60; the two trials not including participants � 60 years of age included healthy adults without any additional factors putting them at greater risk for severe SARS-CoV-2 disease”. It was not at all clear to me what is meant by this statement. 4. Page 12, Figure 1: Again, the confusion remains between Phase 2/3 and Phase 3. 5. Page 8, line 5 from bottom. I am not sure that statistical significance tests are required (see below). However, it is better to interpret the actual p-value rather than state “We defined p < 0.05 as statistically significant”. I suggest omit this phrase. 6. Page 14, Table 3: It would be useful to quote the statistical package used for the calculation of the exact CIs. 7. Page 14, Table 3: Too much precision clouds the message. I suggest replacing, for example, 99.11 (95.13 – 99.98) by 99.1 (95.1 – 100) although quoting these CIs is unnecessary. However, what would be useful is to quote their difference 99.11 − 95.36 = 3.75 with its 95%CI 1.02 to 6.47 and the corresponding p-value = 0.0070. I suggest a better format for Table 3 might be: Type of Trial Yes (%) No (%) Difference 95%CI p-value Industry Sponsor 99.1 95.4 3.8 1.0 to 6.5 0.068 USA 96.1 96.2 −0.2 −3.7 to +3.3 0.92 Therapeutic 96.2 95.5 0.8 −4.6 to +6.1 0.76 Multicentre 95.0 98.0 −3.0 −6.1 to +0.2 0.092 Technical note When comparing differences between proportions which involve any values close to 100% (and or 0%) cause technical problems. Thus, there are several approaches to these calculations and these may give differing p-values. The Exact method is one the authors refer to in their Table 3 which seems entirely appropriate. However, my calculations above have used the statistical package Stata to obtain the p-values which differ somewhat from those of the author. As I indicate above, I am not sure it is necessary to calculate the p-values. Interpretation should focus on the magnitude of the differences and their CIs. Reviewer #2: Interesting, well researched and timely manuscript. Clearly written. Conducive to a follow up paper in 12-18 months (6 months is a relatively short period of time), to see whether a longer snapshot e.g 12 or 24 month timeframe changes the results/conclusions. Reviewer #3: This article described an analysis on early trials of COVID-19 and their informativeness. I would like to congratulate the authors an important piece of work describing potential shortcomings in trial design, recruitment, and potential redundancy. The protocol for this work has been prospectively registered, and there is a clear list of protocol deviations. The manuscript is well-written and easy to follow. I have a few comments for the authors to consider. Abstract: The abstract could be refined to be more informative as a standalone. It would be helpful to include some more specific information on how the three criteria on informativeness were defined, and how the cohort was created (eligibility criteria? Random selection of trials or own trials?). Methods: Did the authors adhere to a reporting checklist (e.g. STROBE or PRISMA)? It would be good to include this checklist as a supplement. Eligibility criteria: The inclusion and exclusion criteria should be listed in the manuscript, and not only provided in a supplement. The reasoning behind the choice of eligibility criteria is unclear, and should be elaborated. I wonder if some of the choices impede generalizability of results. For instance, study phase is a criterion that is usually only filled in for drug trials on trial registries, other trials often chose the option ‘not applicable’. I wonder if by restricting this analysis to certain phase trials, information on other trials was lost? In addition, restricting to Phase 1/2-3 & only trials testing for efficacy may exclude non-drug interventions such as public health messaging trials. Why were behavioral interventions, dietary supplement and Chinese medicine trials excluded? Search string: It is unclear how trials were identified on ClinicalTrials.gov. Were filters used (e.g. COVID-19 or Phase filters?). Or did the authors include all registrations within a time frame? Trial screening and coding of outcomes: What was the agreement between screeners? How were disagreements resolved? Were informativeness measures also assessed by two screeners (this is implied but not explicit)? How was the agreement? Informativeness concepts: The authors refer the reader to information on ‘Informativeness articulated elsewere’ (p.6), to understand the assessed concepts. Since this is a core construct that is required to be understood to understand this paper, I would recommend introducing these concepts and what they mean in detail in the introduction. Redundancy: I have some reservations about the assessment of this concept. Replication in research is crucial, and often trials (and particularly early trials) do not have sufficient sample size to conclusively answer a research question. A trial is only redundant, if high certainty evidence exists that an intervention is effective or not effective (as evaluated by GRADE). This does not seem to have been assessed in this case. If certainty of evidence is low, additional replication trials are crucial to ensure early findings were not purely contextual or chance findings (and thus, they are not redundant in this case). For this reason, I would interpret this criterion very carefully. A slightly different primary outcome does not necessarily make a trial non-redundant. In fact, as the authors point out in the discussion, it may be better if two trials collect the same outcomes so they can be combined in meta-analysis. The analysis looking at the numbers of trials labelled as redundant when disregarding the primary outcome is important, it may be worthwhile presenting this analysis more prominently. Design quality: Trial design was only analysed for Phase 2/3 and Phase 3 trials – but trial design is also important for earlier phase trials (albeit criteria may be different)? ‘We considered a trial to be well-designed if it was randomized, placebo-controlled (with appropriate standard of care in all arms), double-blinded and included participants aged 60 years or over (as a proxy for an at-risk population)’ What if a trial had an active control? Would that not be considered well-designed? It would have been good to look at each trial design criterion separately in each trial (and not just the ones that satisfied previous requirements), to get an assessment of how well each design feature was fulfilled in those trials. Feasibility of Patient-Participant Recruitment: How would a trial that stopped early for effectiveness be assessed here? Also, from our experience of managing a registry, many registrants do not update their registration records even if they have finished recruiting, thus, a trial may have long finished recruitment and still be listed as ‘recruiting’. Do the authors have information on how many of the trials have updated their records? Table 1: Characteristics of trial cohort. If possible, it would be great to include some additional information on the trials, such as target sample sizes and included populations. Discussion: I would be interested in a more in-depth discussion of what needs to change on a structural level in future to improve trial informativeness, particularly in the context of health emergencies. Reviewer #4: 1. Was the sample of exactly 500 arrived at purely by chance? If so, please make it clear that this was not a predetermined number. 2. It would be valuable to include a checklist of items according to the STROBE guidelines https://www.strobe-statement.org/checklists/and STROBE-checklist-v4-combined-PlosMedicine.pdf, with corresponding page numbers to indicate where each item is addressed, 3. I have a big problem with the definition of redundancy as the presence of another trial of the same phase, type of trial (SARS-CoV-2 prevention versus treatment), patient-participant characteristics (including location of care, disease severity and age of trial participants), regimen (including interventions used in combination in a single arm), comparator arm(s) and primary outcome (evaluating primary outcome domain and specific measurement, based on framework from ref 13. This excludes the highly desirable situation when multiple investigators who have obtained funding from a funding agency for a single smaller trial agree to undertake a prospective meta-analysis of individual participant data, as in the NeOProM Collaboration of RCTs of oxygen targeting in preterm newborns (Askie et al JAMA 2018) and (Askie et al Pediatric Obesity 2020 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijpo.12618 and other next-generation syntheses of similar trials to enhance power (see Seidler et al Guide to Prospective Meta-Analysis, BMJ 2019). 4. In view of 3, it is essential in the Discussion to acknowledge that (i) even individually underpowered trials can make a valuable contribution in addressing critically important questions regarding mortality if included in individual participant data meta-analyses and(ii) inability to assess how often this was happening is a major limitation of this study. I would recommend the manuscript be substantially revised and resubmitted. Thank you for the opportunity to review this important work. ********** 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: David Machin Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: Yes: Anna Lene Seidler Reviewer #4: Yes: William Odita Tarnow-Mordi [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". 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Revision 1 |
How Informative Were Early SARS-CoV-2 Treatment and Prevention Trials? A longitudinal cohort analysis of trials registered on clinicaltrials.gov PONE-D-21-28808R1 Dear Dr. Waligora, 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 for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, 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, Dylan A Mordaunt, MB ChB, FRACP, FAIDH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thank you for your resubmission. This meets the criteria for publication. Reviewers' comments: |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-21-28808R1 How Informative Were Early SARS-CoV-2 Treatment and Prevention Trials? A longitudinal cohort analysis of trials registered on clinicaltrials.gov Dear Dr. Waligora: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. 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 plosone@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. Dylan A Mordaunt Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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