Title: Understanding Patient Journey in Ulcerative Colitis Prior to Biologic Initiation: A 5-Year
Exploration
Version: 3 Date: 13 Jan 2021
Reviewer's report:
This is a very interesting work. Having acces to the data, some additional analyses can be
performed.
Please find my detailed comments below.
The conclusions concern remission, progression, and mucosal healing while these outcomes
were not tested within the analysis. I advise to change the conclusions.
The conclusions and the description of the results may be more detailed. As we can see from the
Table 1, the significant increase is observed almost only in the year 1, and the values seem to
be stable from the year 5 to the year 2. Additionally, the mean duration of oral 5-ASA and other
IMM decrease over time. These are interesting findings that should be describedl in more detail.
If you have access to the data, I suggest to include additional aspects in the analysis; two first
are the most important ones:
- severity of the disease: mild, moderate, severe - how many patients with each type of severity
within 5 years and within each year
- status of the disease: remission, active - how many patients in remission within 5 years and
within each year
- surgery (yes/no) within the 5 years (and within each year),
The country of interest should be mentioned in Methods. It can be found somewhere, but not in
the place where it should be (Methods/Data source or Introduction/study aim).
It would be very interesting to assess the factors that influence the need for biologic treatment
(for further analysis).
There are some minor editing issues: the lack of commas (line 27, 37), no space after dot (line
51, 53), no space between reference (line 53).
It should be corticosteroids treatment in the line 39.
In line 65 - what does "adult outpatients" mean? Shouldn't it be "adult patients"?
Figure 1 should be referenced as Supplementary Figure 1.
In Ethical consideration the part of the last sentence starting from "as" is the same as in the
previous sentence.
Title: Understanding Patient Journey in Ulcerative Colitis Prior to Biologic Initiation: A 5-Year
Exploration
Version: 3 Date: 13 Jan 2021
Reviewer's report:
This is a very interesting work. Having acces to the data, some additional analyses can be
performed.
Please find my detailed comments below.
The conclusions concern remission, progression, and mucosal healing while these outcomes
were not tested within the analysis. I advise to change the conclusions.
The conclusions and the description of the results may be more detailed. As we can see from the
Table 1, the significant increase is observed almost only in the year 1, and the values seem to
be stable from the year 5 to the year 2. Additionally, the mean duration of oral 5-ASA and other
IMM decrease over time. These are interesting findings that should be describedl in more detail.
If you have access to the data, I suggest to include additional aspects in the analysis; two first
are the most important ones:
- severity of the disease: mild, moderate, severe - how many patients with each type of severity
within 5 years and within each year
- status of the disease: remission, active - how many patients in remission within 5 years and
within each year
- surgery (yes/no) within the 5 years (and within each year),
The country of interest should be mentioned in Methods. It can be found somewhere, but not in
the place where it should be (Methods/Data source or Introduction/study aim).
It would be very interesting to assess the factors that influence the need for biologic treatment
(for further analysis).
There are some minor editing issues: the lack of commas (line 27, 37), no space after dot (line
51, 53), no space between reference (line 53).
It should be corticosteroids treatment in the line 39.
In line 65 - what does "adult outpatients" mean? Shouldn't it be "adult patients"?
Figure 1 should be referenced as Supplementary Figure 1.
In Ethical consideration the part of the last sentence starting from "as" is the same as in the
previous sentence.
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Understanding Patient Journey in Ulcerative Colitis Prior to Biologic Initiation: A 5-Year
Exploration
Version: 3 Date: 13 Jan 2021
Reviewer's report:
This is a very interesting work. Having acces to the data, some additional analyses can be
performed.
Please find my detailed comments below.
The conclusions concern remission, progression, and mucosal healing while these outcomes
were not tested within the analysis. I advise to change the conclusions.
The conclusions and the description of the results may be more detailed. As we can see from the
Table 1, the significant increase is observed almost only in the year 1, and the values seem to
be stable from the year 5 to the year 2. Additionally, the mean duration of oral 5-ASA and other
IMM decrease over time. These are interesting findings that should be describedl in more detail.
If you have access to the data, I suggest to include additional aspects in the analysis; two first
are the most important ones:
- severity of the disease: mild, moderate, severe - how many patients with each type of severity
within 5 years and within each year
- status of the disease: remission, active - how many patients in remission within 5 years and
within each year
- surgery (yes/no) within the 5 years (and within each year),
The country of interest should be mentioned in Methods. It can be found somewhere, but not in
the place where it should be (Methods/Data source or Introduction/study aim).
It would be very interesting to assess the factors that influence the need for biologic treatment
(for further analysis).
There are some minor editing issues: the lack of commas (line 27, 37), no space after dot (line
51, 53), no space between reference (line 53).
It should be corticosteroids treatment in the line 39.
In line 65 - what does "adult outpatients" mean? Shouldn't it be "adult patients"?
Figure 1 should be referenced as Supplementary Figure 1.
In Ethical consideration the part of the last sentence starting from "as" is the same as in the
previous sentence.
assistant