Reviewer's report
Title:Low Rate of recurrence of Helicobacter Pylori infection in spite of high
clarithromycin resistance in Pakistan
Version: 1Date:5 December 2012
Reviewer: Daniel P Barry
Reviewer's report:
The authors have satisfactorily addressed most of my previous comments except
for one: The Materials and Methods contains stratification of various "levels" of
antibiotic resistance defined by MIC breakpoints. As there is no discussion of
these categories in the rest of the paper, such discussion should be removed.
A few other issues have also been identified and listed below. Most are minor
problems with editing and language of the text.
Minor Essential Revisions
1) There is inconsistent abbreviation of H. pylori.
2) There are multiple punctuation problems, especially spacing following the
period/full stop (.).
3) Strange underlining appears at various spots in the text.
4) Abbreviation use is still inconsistent (e.g. PCR and RUT are defined in more
than one place, BD is not defined).
5) There is inconsistent capitalization of section headers.
6) The degree symbol (#) changes size throughout the paper.
7) Actual p values resulting from Fisher's Exact Test should be given, rather than
p > 0.05.
8) The last sentence in the "Patients" section of the M&M needs to be rewritten
("... those with negative returned 14C-UBT were administered every 3
months...").
9) Rewrite the "Rapid urea test" section ("The tissue specimens were used for
the rapid urease test consists of a dry filter paper containing...).
10) The description of restriction sites in the "PCR-RFLP" section in the M&M is
confusing. The restriction enzymes recognize and cut at a palindromic sites.
Since HhaI digestion resulted in two fragments, there must be a single site of
digestion. Similarly, if Sau3A1 produces 3 fragments there must be two
restriction sites. This section should be rewritten.
11) In the "PCR-based RFLP Analysis" section of the Results, the meaning of the
sentence, "Five of these 6 patients were previously documented to have different
RFLP patterns in antrum and body and same on both biopsy sites." is not
understandable.
12) The authors' additional description of Table 2 in the body of the text is
beneficial. However, the p values within the Table are still confusing as it is
unclear what is being compared. Perhaps they should be removed from the
Table.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Low Rate of recurrence of Helicobacter Pylori infection in spite of high
clarithromycin resistance in Pakistan
Version: 1Date:5 December 2012
Reviewer: Daniel P Barry
Reviewer's report:
The authors have satisfactorily addressed most of my previous comments except
for one: The Materials and Methods contains stratification of various "levels" of
antibiotic resistance defined by MIC breakpoints. As there is no discussion of
these categories in the rest of the paper, such discussion should be removed.
A few other issues have also been identified and listed below. Most are minor
problems with editing and language of the text.
Minor Essential Revisions
1) There is inconsistent abbreviation of H. pylori.
2) There are multiple punctuation problems, especially spacing following the
period/full stop (.).
3) Strange underlining appears at various spots in the text.
4) Abbreviation use is still inconsistent (e.g. PCR and RUT are defined in more
than one place, BD is not defined).
5) There is inconsistent capitalization of section headers.
6) The degree symbol (#) changes size throughout the paper.
7) Actual p values resulting from Fisher's Exact Test should be given, rather than
p > 0.05.
8) The last sentence in the "Patients" section of the M&M needs to be rewritten
("... those with negative returned 14C-UBT were administered every 3
months...").
9) Rewrite the "Rapid urea test" section ("The tissue specimens were used for
the rapid urease test consists of a dry filter paper containing...).
10) The description of restriction sites in the "PCR-RFLP" section in the M&M is
confusing. The restriction enzymes recognize and cut at a palindromic sites.
Since HhaI digestion resulted in two fragments, there must be a single site of
digestion. Similarly, if Sau3A1 produces 3 fragments there must be two
restriction sites. This section should be rewritten.
11) In the "PCR-based RFLP Analysis" section of the Results, the meaning of the
sentence, "Five of these 6 patients were previously documented to have different
RFLP patterns in antrum and body and same on both biopsy sites." is not
understandable.
12) The authors' additional description of Table 2 in the body of the text is
beneficial. However, the p values within the Table are still confusing as it is
unclear what is being compared. Perhaps they should be removed from the
Table.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Low Rate of recurrence of Helicobacter Pylori infection in spite of high
clarithromycin resistance in Pakistan
Version: 1Date:5 December 2012
Reviewer: Daniel P Barry
Reviewer's report:
The authors have satisfactorily addressed most of my previous comments except
for one: The Materials and Methods contains stratification of various "levels" of
antibiotic resistance defined by MIC breakpoints. As there is no discussion of
these categories in the rest of the paper, such discussion should be removed.
A few other issues have also been identified and listed below. Most are minor
problems with editing and language of the text.
Minor Essential Revisions
1) There is inconsistent abbreviation of H. pylori.
2) There are multiple punctuation problems, especially spacing following the
period/full stop (.).
3) Strange underlining appears at various spots in the text.
4) Abbreviation use is still inconsistent (e.g. PCR and RUT are defined in more
than one place, BD is not defined).
5) There is inconsistent capitalization of section headers.
6) The degree symbol (#) changes size throughout the paper.
7) Actual p values resulting from Fisher's Exact Test should be given, rather than
p > 0.05.
8) The last sentence in the "Patients" section of the M&M needs to be rewritten
("... those with negative returned 14C-UBT were administered every 3
months...").
9) Rewrite the "Rapid urea test" section ("The tissue specimens were used for
the rapid urease test consists of a dry filter paper containing...).
10) The description of restriction sites in the "PCR-RFLP" section in the M&M is
confusing. The restriction enzymes recognize and cut at a palindromic sites.
Since HhaI digestion resulted in two fragments, there must be a single site of
digestion. Similarly, if Sau3A1 produces 3 fragments there must be two
restriction sites. This section should be rewritten.
11) In the "PCR-based RFLP Analysis" section of the Results, the meaning of the
sentence, "Five of these 6 patients were previously documented to have different
RFLP patterns in antrum and body and same on both biopsy sites." is not
understandable.
12) The authors' additional description of Table 2 in the body of the text is
beneficial. However, the p values within the Table are still confusing as it is
unclear what is being compared. Perhaps they should be removed from the
Table.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
assistant