Reviewer's report
Title:Colorectal cancer screening services in family medicine vs. internal
medicine practices: a cross-sectional study
Version: 2Date:17 January 2012
Reviewer: Alexander Link
Reviewer's report:
In the present study, authors compare the CRC screening rates or screening
awareness based on the patients self-report in US-national study. The authors
show that those patients that usually visit “internal” doctors are potentially less
likely to be aware of the screening colonoscopy, but at the same time do undergo
CRC screening with either methods more frequently than those from “familial”
doctors. I believe that this well-written report may be helpful for future
improvement of cancer preventive strategies.
Minor Essential Revisions:
1. Please revise the conclusion statement in the abstract. Since the study was
designed to evaluate the self-reported awareness and personal adherence to the
recommendations, I believe that there is not enough data to support the “failure”
statement.
2. This is U.S. national-based study and the results may not be applicable to
other countries. Please state this in the limitations.
3. I would strongly recommend adding following descriptions to the title of the
paper: in United States and self-report.
4. According to the Figure 1, the patients were asked about the recent
colonoscopy time point (<1, 1-2, 2-3 etc). The authors may wish to complete the
information in the table.
5. Please include the characteristics and adherence to CRC screening for the
disabled patients. What is the percentage of the disabled patients in this study?
Discretionary Revisions:
6. One of the main limitations of the study is the defined normal screening
variable within five years and not as usually recommended 10 years. The authors
may wish to elaborate more on that in discussion.
7. To simplify the understanding of the Table 1, this may be splitted into two
tables separating characteristics and results.
8. The identification of the specialty of the usual care primary care physician may
have strong biased overlap because of the self-reported context. The authors
may wish to provide the numerical distribution of particular subjects regarding
“greater number” of services prior to the assignment to FPs or internist.
9. To simplify the understanding of the Table 1, this may be splitted into two
tables separating characteristics and results.
10. The authors state in the discussion part that the CRC screening rate was
lower than the national goal of 70%. Since CRC screening was defined within a
5-year time period and not as recommended within 10-year period, this
statement may be misleading.
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.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Colorectal cancer screening services in family medicine vs. internal
medicine practices: a cross-sectional study
Version: 2Date:17 January 2012
Reviewer: Alexander Link
Reviewer's report:
In the present study, authors compare the CRC screening rates or screening
awareness based on the patients self-report in US-national study. The authors
show that those patients that usually visit “internal” doctors are potentially less
likely to be aware of the screening colonoscopy, but at the same time do undergo
CRC screening with either methods more frequently than those from “familial”
doctors. I believe that this well-written report may be helpful for future
improvement of cancer preventive strategies.
Minor Essential Revisions:
1. Please revise the conclusion statement in the abstract. Since the study was
designed to evaluate the self-reported awareness and personal adherence to the
recommendations, I believe that there is not enough data to support the “failure”
statement.
2. This is U.S. national-based study and the results may not be applicable to
other countries. Please state this in the limitations.
3. I would strongly recommend adding following descriptions to the title of the
paper: in United States and self-report.
4. According to the Figure 1, the patients were asked about the recent
colonoscopy time point (<1, 1-2, 2-3 etc). The authors may wish to complete the
information in the table.
5. Please include the characteristics and adherence to CRC screening for the
disabled patients. What is the percentage of the disabled patients in this study?
Discretionary Revisions:
6. One of the main limitations of the study is the defined normal screening
variable within five years and not as usually recommended 10 years. The authors
may wish to elaborate more on that in discussion.
7. To simplify the understanding of the Table 1, this may be splitted into two
tables separating characteristics and results.
8. The identification of the specialty of the usual care primary care physician may
have strong biased overlap because of the self-reported context. The authors
may wish to provide the numerical distribution of particular subjects regarding
“greater number” of services prior to the assignment to FPs or internist.
9. To simplify the understanding of the Table 1, this may be splitted into two
tables separating characteristics and results.
10. The authors state in the discussion part that the CRC screening rate was
lower than the national goal of 70%. Since CRC screening was defined within a
5-year time period and not as recommended within 10-year period, this
statement may be misleading.
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.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Colorectal cancer screening services in family medicine vs. internal
medicine practices: a cross-sectional study
Version: 2Date:17 January 2012
Reviewer: Alexander Link
Reviewer's report:
In the present study, authors compare the CRC screening rates or screening
awareness based on the patients self-report in US-national study. The authors
show that those patients that usually visit “internal” doctors are potentially less
likely to be aware of the screening colonoscopy, but at the same time do undergo
CRC screening with either methods more frequently than those from “familial”
doctors. I believe that this well-written report may be helpful for future
improvement of cancer preventive strategies.
Minor Essential Revisions:
1. Please revise the conclusion statement in the abstract. Since the study was
designed to evaluate the self-reported awareness and personal adherence to the
recommendations, I believe that there is not enough data to support the “failure”
statement.
2. This is U.S. national-based study and the results may not be applicable to
other countries. Please state this in the limitations.
3. I would strongly recommend adding following descriptions to the title of the
paper: in United States and self-report.
4. According to the Figure 1, the patients were asked about the recent
colonoscopy time point (<1, 1-2, 2-3 etc). The authors may wish to complete the
information in the table.
5. Please include the characteristics and adherence to CRC screening for the
disabled patients. What is the percentage of the disabled patients in this study?
Discretionary Revisions:
6. One of the main limitations of the study is the defined normal screening
variable within five years and not as usually recommended 10 years. The authors
may wish to elaborate more on that in discussion.
7. To simplify the understanding of the Table 1, this may be splitted into two
tables separating characteristics and results.
8. The identification of the specialty of the usual care primary care physician may
have strong biased overlap because of the self-reported context. The authors
may wish to provide the numerical distribution of particular subjects regarding
“greater number” of services prior to the assignment to FPs or internist.
9. To simplify the understanding of the Table 1, this may be splitted into two
tables separating characteristics and results.
10. The authors state in the discussion part that the CRC screening rate was
lower than the national goal of 70%. Since CRC screening was defined within a
5-year time period and not as recommended within 10-year period, this
statement may be misleading.
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.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
assistant