Reviewer's report
Title:Physiologic and Laboratory Correlates of Depression, Anxiety, and Poor
Sleep in Liver Cirrhosis
Version: 2Date:17 June 2012
Reviewer: Grace Wong
Reviewer's report:
This study demonstrated some interesting phenomenon concerning the
relationship between the psychological and physiological aspects among cirrhotic
patients. The sample size was reasonable.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. The investigators had done a lot of work, but there was only about one page in
the Result section. I am sure the authors may make more good use of their work
and observation. I would suggest some sub-sections under the Result part, e.g.
Patients, Psychological analysis, Heart rate variability, Correlation between
psychological and physiological parameters etc. Under each sub-section the
authors may describe more in details about their findings.
2. I think the important and novel findings of this study was not well illustrated in
Table 1 and 2. Instead of comparing patients of different CP class, it may be
better to compare patients with or without psychological distress.
3. If AST was correlated with psychological distress, how about ALT? Why there
was a difference between these two markers?
4. As the authors concluded that AST is an important mediator of inflammatory
process which was found correlated with psychological distress, was this
postulation supported by the similar correlation between necroinflammation and
psychological distress? How many patients had liver biopsy done? What were
the results of liver biopsy, in particulars the necroinflammation index.
Minor Essential Revisions
1. This is a relatively short paper, but surprising the number of reference is as so
high (63 references in total). It would be more appropriate to select
representative papers as references, such as 1 or 2 references from [4-8], [9-16],
[17-24], [25-29] etc.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Reviewer's report
Title:Physiologic and Laboratory Correlates of Depression, Anxiety, and Poor
Sleep in Liver Cirrhosis
Version: 2Date:17 June 2012
Reviewer: Grace Wong
Reviewer's report:
This study demonstrated some interesting phenomenon concerning the
relationship between the psychological and physiological aspects among cirrhotic
patients. The sample size was reasonable.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. The investigators had done a lot of work, but there was only about one page in
the Result section. I am sure the authors may make more good use of their work
and observation. I would suggest some sub-sections under the Result part, e.g.
Patients, Psychological analysis, Heart rate variability, Correlation between
psychological and physiological parameters etc. Under each sub-section the
authors may describe more in details about their findings.
2. I think the important and novel findings of this study was not well illustrated in
Table 1 and 2. Instead of comparing patients of different CP class, it may be
better to compare patients with or without psychological distress.
3. If AST was correlated with psychological distress, how about ALT? Why there
was a difference between these two markers?
4. As the authors concluded that AST is an important mediator of inflammatory
process which was found correlated with psychological distress, was this
postulation supported by the similar correlation between necroinflammation and
psychological distress? How many patients had liver biopsy done? What were
the results of liver biopsy, in particulars the necroinflammation index.
Minor Essential Revisions
1. This is a relatively short paper, but surprising the number of reference is as so
high (63 references in total). It would be more appropriate to select
representative papers as references, such as 1 or 2 references from [4-8], [9-16],
[17-24], [25-29] etc.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Physiologic and Laboratory Correlates of Depression, Anxiety, and Poor
Sleep in Liver Cirrhosis
Version: 2Date:17 June 2012
Reviewer: Grace Wong
Reviewer's report:
This study demonstrated some interesting phenomenon concerning the
relationship between the psychological and physiological aspects among cirrhotic
patients. The sample size was reasonable.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. The investigators had done a lot of work, but there was only about one page in
the Result section. I am sure the authors may make more good use of their work
and observation. I would suggest some sub-sections under the Result part, e.g.
Patients, Psychological analysis, Heart rate variability, Correlation between
psychological and physiological parameters etc. Under each sub-section the
authors may describe more in details about their findings.
2. I think the important and novel findings of this study was not well illustrated in
Table 1 and 2. Instead of comparing patients of different CP class, it may be
better to compare patients with or without psychological distress.
3. If AST was correlated with psychological distress, how about ALT? Why there
was a difference between these two markers?
4. As the authors concluded that AST is an important mediator of inflammatory
process which was found correlated with psychological distress, was this
postulation supported by the similar correlation between necroinflammation and
psychological distress? How many patients had liver biopsy done? What were
the results of liver biopsy, in particulars the necroinflammation index.
Minor Essential Revisions
1. This is a relatively short paper, but surprising the number of reference is as so
high (63 references in total). It would be more appropriate to select
representative papers as references, such as 1 or 2 references from [4-8], [9-16],
[17-24], [25-29] etc.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
assistant