Peer Review History
Original SubmissionOctober 9, 2021 |
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PONE-D-21-32308Optimal opportunistic screening of atrial fibrillation in primary care: who and howPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bañeras, 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 read carefully the reviewers' comments and improve your manuscript as for their suggestions. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 31 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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(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This is a timely study. As the authors note, a limitation is that patients with atrial flutter or a PPM were excluded. Can you please clarify what the term "doubtful" means. Does this mean it is doubtful that any pulse can be felt? Or does this mean it is doubtful that the patient has atrial fibrillation. It is important to the readers to know how you defined terms. I also think the discussion can be expanded to make it clear that the reason screening is not in the US prevention guidelines is because no study to date has shown that initiation of therapy for screen detected AD improves outcomes as compared with no screening at all. Reviewer #2: I understood the purpose of the research to study an optimal pulse palpation method and create an algorithm to select patients for whom pulse palpation is useful, and authors created the algorithm from the research results. However, there is room for improvement in the overall structure of the paper, the use of terms, and the content of the abstract. 1) Doesn't the meaning of 'accuracy' mean 'diagnostic accuracy'? Does the meaning of 'undetectable' mean 'unable to palpate pulse'? Especially for the meaning of 'undetectable' , I cannot recognize clearly. Also, four possible definitions of positive palpation are difficult to understand in page8. What was doubtful? Was the palpation of pulses weak, or difficult to decide regular or irregulat? The definition of these terms should be explaind clearly. 2) I couldn't find in the text 'sensitivity = 79%' on the second line of Abstract Results, is that correct? 3) In the Abstract, it is better to describe the contents of the algorithm. 4) The 4th and subsequent lines on page 5 of the Introduction are suitable for the Discussion. 5) 'A first aim',' A second aim', and'A third aim' on pages 8-9 are the contents of the Introduction, and it is better to describe only the methods for these aims in 'Materials and Methods'. 6) The rationale for 3% of the'Creation of the algorithm' on page 9 is unclear. 7) Doesn't 'AF' in the last line of page 11 mean 'unknown AF'? 8) Isn't 'should caution' on line 15 on page 13 'should be careful for'? 9) Although the results of conventional research are introduced in 'Discussion', the interpretation of the results of Authors' research is not fully described in 'Discussion'. Introduction of previous research should be restricted to the research directly related to the purpose and results of Authors' research. The focus of 'Discussion' is ambiguous and it is difficult to recognize 'what was considered' in Authors' Discussion. For example, the'First' limitation described from line 7 on page 14 is considered to be a statement that asserts the usefulness of the results of Authors' study rather than 'limitation'. Reviewer #3: Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this manuscript titled “Optimal opportunistic screening of atrial fibrillation in primary care: who and how”. The manuscript is of interest particularly to readers engaged in AF screening, as well as those interested in public health initiatives and primary care. The manuscript evaluated different pulse palpation parameters for optimally screening for AF in people age 40 years or older in order to design a simple algorithm that could be transferable to primary care to help identify opportunistically patients that would benefit from having regular pulse palpation. The research was performed in 4 cardiology outpatient clinics using trained nurses who palpated 7844 pulses and then followed these with a 12-lead ECG. Basic clinical data was also assessed. The authors concluded that palpation of the radial artery was the most accurate parameter to use, however specificity decreased with age, whilst heart failure was the only clinical factor that required an adapted approach. This is a nicely written manuscript of what must have been a huge undertaking and the information presented will hopefully improve detection of AF in primary care if adopted. I have a few comments and suggestions, which I have listed below. In this manuscript the authors have not tested the designed algorithm in primary care, which is slightly disappointing, it would have been nice to confirm if the algorithm had been transferable and strengthened the work considerably. It would also have been a fantastic opportunity to test the accuracy of the more recently developed single-lead ECG devices to then compare with the pulse and 12-lead. Particularly as a number of studies have reported pulse palpation having a much lower specificity than the newer technology. I find the title of the study slightly misleading. My initial thoughts when reading this was that this study had been performed in a primary care setting with a number of healthcare professionals. I would suggest altering the title to reflect the study that was performed. In relation to this the fact that the study hadn’t been conducted in primary care for the obvious reasons that the authors state I would suggest being more circumspect as to whether this would be transferable to primary care. There have been a number of studies assessing the accuracy of pulse palpation with various HCPs, some in primary care, very few have been referred to in this manuscript. Nurses working in a cardiac setting would be used to taking pulses and ECG’s this may thus have influenced the accuracy data of pulse palpation and may not truly reflect how this would work in primary care, where pulse palpation by most HCPs is less routine. I think this would be a limitation of the study, which should be noted as such. I think it would also be helpful to know more details about the nurses involved in the study, the number of nurses involved and the median of their years of experience. From the data as well as expressing the specificity and sensitivity, I would suggest defining the number of false positives and listing the causes of these (e.g. ectopic beats) and how this compares with other studies. This would make the data more accessible to the lay reader. I think it would also have been nice to show the number of new opportunistic AF cases that were detected in this study, as this would have shown relevance to opportunistic pulse testing in all healthcare settings. Although not the basis of the study, I think a table stating some of the baseline demographics of the participants would have been useful to the field. I accept that this may be a huge undertaking however, to organise. Finally, I think it would have been nice to see some cost-effectiveness calculations and comparisons with other designed screening methods Reviewer #4: This is a study exploring an interesting concept aimed at assisting clinicians in prioritising resources to detect AF amongst patients that are the most likely to present with the condition. The consideration of multiple parameters as part of the algorithm creation is certainly a major strength of this study. On the other hand, the selection of pulse palpation as an index test to detect AF in the age of digital technology is somewhat questionable. This is demonstrated by authors themselves in a form of limited diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of pulse palpation ascertained by the study compared to modern ECG-based diagnostic modalities discussed elsewhere. The recommendations pertaining to AF screening in individuals aged < 65 years of age that are drawn from the manuscript are questionable at best considering the pre-existing evidence and guideline recommendations. It is also difficult to generalise the findings from the cardiology clinic to general practice or primary care, and I would urge authors to change their stance in this attempt, focusing on patients attending the cardiology clinic instead. 1. “Optimal opportunistic screening of atrial fibrillation in primary care: who and how” Considering the fact that the paper is solely focused on pulse palpation in a cardiology clinic setting (rather than primary care), I suggest amending the title to “Optimal opportunistic screening of atrial fibrillation using pulse palpation in a cardiology clinic: who and how” or similar to that effect. I suggest removing “primary care” from this manuscript since it relates to screening in a secondary care or specialist outpatient clinic. 2. Abstract. A well-presented summary of the study. “Methods: In 4 Cardiology outpatient clinics, 7844 pulses were palpated according to a randomized list of arterial territories and durations of measure, and immediately followed by a 12-lead ECG, which we used as the ground truth.” I suggest changing “the ground truth” to “reference standard” as per STARD guidance/checklist. 3. Introduction: • “Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia,1 and its prevalence rises with age, from about 2% in the whole population to about in 10%-17% in individuals aged 80 years or older.2” Please kindly remove “in” after “about” (typo). Please also review reference No. 1 which does not relate to AF. I suggest changing to one of the following: Lip G.Y.H., Kakar P. & Watson T. (2007) Atrial fibrillation--the growing epidemic. Heart (British Cardiac Society) 93(5), 542-543. Or Chugh S.S., Havmoeller R., Narayanan K., Singh D., Rienstra M., Benjamin E.J., et al. (2014a) Worldwide Epidemiology of Atrial Fibrillation: A Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study. Circulation 129(8), 837-847. • “However, some voices have raised criticism about current screenings for AF.” Suggest changing to “However, some voices have raised criticism about the current AF screening initiatives.” • “We hope that physicians might successfully apply this algorithm to select the individuals to who optimally palpate the pulse, efficiently improving the detection of AF and thus the prevention of stroke and its costs.” Suggest changing to “We hope that physicians might successfully apply this algorithm to select individuals in whom to optimally palpate the pulse, efficiently improving the detection of AF and thus the prevention of stroke and its costs.” • Whilst the two paragraphs on page 5 are very informative and provide a rationale for the study, they partially overlap with the Methods section and could perhaps be made shorter. Instead, authors may consider including a statement or a sentence relating to the aim/objectives of the study. 4. Materials and Methods: • It is possible that the definition of “primary care” varies between the healthcare systems, however from authors’ description “primary care” appears to be more resemblant of specialist or secondary/tertiary care than the traditional general practice or family medicine. • The operator of the test was blinded to the ECG result, which helps ensure the validity of diagnostic accuracy data. • It would be interesting to know why authors selected right radial/carotid pulse palpation and did not include other options, such as ulnar pulse which may sometimes be used in practice. Similarly, no rationale is provided for the selected duration of pulse palpation, i.e. 10 seconds vs. the commonly used 15, 30 or 60 seconds. • “Immediately after pulse palpation, the nurse conducted a 12-lead ECG, considered the gold standard for detecting AF after reading by a cardiologist,14 and which we used as ground truth.” Suggest changing to ““Immediately after pulse palpation, the nurse conducted a 12-lead ECG, considered to be the gold standard for detecting AF after reading by a cardiologist,14 and which we used as a reference standard.” • The diagnostic categories of pulse palpation appear overly complex. It may have been easier to only ask nurses to differentiate between: regular, irregular, doubtful or undetectable. It may have also made data analysis somewhat more straightforward. • An excellent selection of independent variables for the mixed-effects model, covering most important bases. 5. Results • It is very valuable to see the associations between diagnostic accuracy measures and various parameters (such as patient’s age), however it would also be helpful to include a conventional Table 1, that may contain the demographic details of all study participants (including their average age, comorbidities, etc.). The fact that 18.4% of patients had AF suggests that this study sample was perhaps quite different from what one may expect in the general population, including primary care. • “The duration of palpation was 10 seconds in 49.9% palpations, and the necessary time in 50.1%.” It would be useful to know what the average “necessary time” was because that may have some effect on the utilisation of human resources, and possibly diagnostic accuracy (although the results presented here show otherwise). • “Specificity was statistically significantly lower in older individuals (89% in <73 years and 83% in ≥73 years, p<0.001).” Why was the age threshold for older individuals set at 73 or 70 years and not the conventional 65 years or even 75 years? This would be relevant to appropriate international guidelines for opportunistic AF screening. Apart from PPV/FOR, did participant’s age affect the sensitivity or specificity of the test? • Table 2. I can see the rationale for conducting this analysis and for including this table. It does however take the reader some time to review all data included, and it probably warrants a brief summary paragraph to explain the key findings at a glance, especially since the purpose of this study was to develop an algorithm. One may also argue that the analysis which include participants under the age of 65 years is somewhat less beneficial considering the fact that few of them would actually have AF and that most of those with detectable cases would not require interventions, such as anticoagulation. Indeed, few studies have ever evaluated the diagnostic accuracy and/or cost-effectiveness of screening individuals < 65 years of age for AF. • “Despite pulse palpation has been widely recommended to screen for AF, there is little evidence about which are the optimal palpation parameters or about its positive predictive values and false omission rates in general practice settings.” Suggest changing to “Despite pulse palpation being widely recommended to screen for AF, there is little evidence about the optimal palpation parameters or about its positive predictive values and false omission rates in general practice settings.” 6. Discussion and Conclusions • “For example, single-time-point ECG recording in a general population ≥65 years of age detected AF in 1.4%.” I suggest making it clear these data are from a systematic review rather than primary literature. • “A straightforward strategy to improve the efficiency of the detection of AF consists in first selecting those individuals with higher risk of AF, and the cheapest and quickest method to evaluate this risk is palpation of the pulse.” I suggest rewording to “A straightforward strategy to improve the efficiency of AF detection consists of first selecting those individuals with a higher risk of AF, and the cheapest and quickest method to evaluate this risk is palpation of the pulse.” • “Indeed, systematic pulse assessment during routine clinic visits followed by 12-lead ECG in those with an irregular pulse has been already reported to substantially increase the detection of AF.” That is correct, however this and many other studies have shown that opportunistic screening is likely to be even more effective and cost-effective than systematic approaches. This raises a question of whether the authors should have focused on creating an algorithm for pulse palpation in population groups for whom AF detection is already recommended, e.g. those aged 65 and over. • “In any case, our estimates may be not directly comparable to those of previous studies because most of latter did not clearly reported how they included or coded doubtful and undetectable palpations.10” Please change “reported” to “report”. • “Morgan et al found also found high specificity (98%) but low sensitivity (54%) when considering an abnormal pulse as a ‘continuous irregularity’.21” Remove one of the “found”. Also, authors may wish to state the fact their results were perhaps closer to those of “frequent or continuous irregularity” defined by Morgan & Mant (sensitivity 72%, specificity 94%), which makes sense considering the criteria used by the present study for the positive test result. • Reference 22. I could not relate this reference to data regarding the sensitivity and specificity of AF detection presented by authors. They may wish to review the reference selected accordingly. • “The importance of age in AF may has led many screening studies to use a threshold of ≥ 65 years.21,22” Please change “has” to “have”. • “Younger people can also receive anticoagulation if they meet the CHADS-VASc score criteria, because 1-2 points of the criteria are age>65-75 years, but the other 7 points are not age-related.12” This statement is correct, however the low prevalence of comorbidities included in the CHA2DS2-VASc score (e.g. heart failure) amongst younger patients, means that the majority of < 65-year olds may not benefit from AF screening. Please change “CHADS-VASc” to “CHA2DS2-VASc”. • “In the recent years, there have appeared new AF detection methods based on the use of novel technologies, such as smartphones with ECG electrodes, smart watches, or blood pressure machines.” It is crucial not to combine single- or multiple-lead ECG devices and photoplethysmography-based devices/applications under the same umbrella: not just because the former may offer additional diagnostic potential for AF (30-second ECG is diagnostic of AF), but also because of differences in diagnostic accuracy (particularly specificity). I would urge caution when combining these technologies together considering the growing amount of evidence (including studies of cost-effectiveness) that supports the use of ECG-based devices in AF screening. • “Conversely, our proposed screening would consist in a simple and inexpensive pulse palpation, which does not raise anxiety and is acceptable to most individuals.10” Suggest changing to “consist of”. • “However, the sensitivity and specificity of a screening tool do not depend on the prevalence of the medical condition, and we checked that they neither depended on a range of heart conditions, so that we can safely translate the results to the general population.” It is somewhat unusual that the presence of heart failure influenced the PPV/FOR but not the sensitivity or specificity. Am I correct in confirming this and what could be the underlying reason(s)? • “However, the sensitivity and specificity of a screening tool do not depend on the prevalence of the medical condition, and we checked that they neither depended on a range of heart conditions, so that we can safely translate the results to the general population.” As previously mentioned, despite the adjustments, the generalisation of these findings requires an adequate caution, considering they were drawn from cardiology patients and not patients in general practice. • Overall, the conclusion mostly draws on the findings of the study. On the other hand, at present I cannot support the use of term “primary care” instead of “outpatient” or “cardiology” clinic, taking into account the setting and nature of patients involved. Similarly, in the absence of substantial evidence, I would question the benefits of screening some patients aged < 65 years of age which is encouraged by authors of the study. 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Revision 1 |
Optimal opportunistic screening of atrial fibrillation using pulse palpation in cardiology outpatient clinics: who and how PONE-D-21-32308R1 Dear Dr. Bañeras, 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. 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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 ********** 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: This is a solid paper. The authors have carried out an important study and presented the results clearly. Reviewer #2: Authors responded to my questions and comments, and revised appropriately. I think revised manuscript is suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Reviewer #3: The authors have addressed or explained why they cannot address my recommendations and I am happy for the manuscript to be accepted in its revised form. Reviewer #4: Authors have made substantial amendments to the original manuscript, particularly revising the title to reflect the study methodology and the structure of the manuscript itself in response to reviewers' comments. They have also addressed all questions submitted with the original review of the manuscript accordingly. |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-21-32308R1 Optimal opportunistic screening of atrial fibrillation using pulse palpation in cardiology outpatient clinics: who and how. Dear Dr. Bañeras: 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. Giulio Francesco Romiti Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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