Reviewer's report
Title:Low bone mass in microscopic colitis
Version: 1Date:9 August 2010
Reviewer: John S Leeds
Reviewer's report:
The authors describe a small but interesting study concerning bone mineral
density changes in patients with microscopic colitis. This is worthy of publication
but some parts of the report require clarification:
Major compulsory revisions
1. More information is required concerning the recruitment of the individuals with
microscopic colitis e.g. consecutive patients? What is the size of this unit? Is this
a tertiary practice and how many patients do they treat with IBD in general.
Additionally, what treatments were they receiving and how many had received
steroids in the preceding 12 months?
2. More information is needed concerning the Crohn's comparison group. What
was the distibution of their disease. What medications were they taking and how
many courses of steroids had they received over the preceding 12 months?
Were there any differences in BMD in those who had purely colonic disease
compared to those with small bowel disease?
3. Why weren't patients with ulcerative colitis used as a comparison group? This
would have given further strength to the study.
4. In the results the number of patients with osteoporosis and osteopaenia are
given for those with microscopic colitis only. What numbers of patients with
Crohn's disease had reduced BMD as in the table average BMD findings are
given.
5. BMD can be affected by a large number of other factors such as smoking,
weightbearing exercise and BMI. It would be useful to show there are no
differences between the Crohn's group and the microscopic colitis group with
respect to these variables.
6. In the methods it is stated that a number of variables are recorded but they are
not reported in the results. This could be displayed in table form for all groups.
Minor essential revisions
1. Join together the final 2 sentences in the first paragraph of the introduction.
2. Patients and methods, second paragraph: budesonide.
3. Methods, paragraph 6: parathormone; thyroid.
4. Discussion, paragraphs 6, 7 and final: inappropriate use of colon and
semicolon.
5. Conclusion, final paragraph: suggest rewording.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:Low bone mass in microscopic colitis
Version: 1Date:9 August 2010
Reviewer: John S Leeds
Reviewer's report:
The authors describe a small but interesting study concerning bone mineral
density changes in patients with microscopic colitis. This is worthy of publication
but some parts of the report require clarification:
Major compulsory revisions
1. More information is required concerning the recruitment of the individuals with
microscopic colitis e.g. consecutive patients? What is the size of this unit? Is this
a tertiary practice and how many patients do they treat with IBD in general.
Additionally, what treatments were they receiving and how many had received
steroids in the preceding 12 months?
2. More information is needed concerning the Crohn's comparison group. What
was the distibution of their disease. What medications were they taking and how
many courses of steroids had they received over the preceding 12 months?
Were there any differences in BMD in those who had purely colonic disease
compared to those with small bowel disease?
3. Why weren't patients with ulcerative colitis used as a comparison group? This
would have given further strength to the study.
4. In the results the number of patients with osteoporosis and osteopaenia are
given for those with microscopic colitis only. What numbers of patients with
Crohn's disease had reduced BMD as in the table average BMD findings are
given.
5. BMD can be affected by a large number of other factors such as smoking,
weightbearing exercise and BMI. It would be useful to show there are no
differences between the Crohn's group and the microscopic colitis group with
respect to these variables.
6. In the methods it is stated that a number of variables are recorded but they are
not reported in the results. This could be displayed in table form for all groups.
Minor essential revisions
1. Join together the final 2 sentences in the first paragraph of the introduction.
2. Patients and methods, second paragraph: budesonide.
3. Methods, paragraph 6: parathormone; thyroid.
4. Discussion, paragraphs 6, 7 and final: inappropriate use of colon and
semicolon.
5. Conclusion, final paragraph: suggest rewording.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:Low bone mass in microscopic colitis
Version: 1Date:9 August 2010
Reviewer: John S Leeds
Reviewer's report:
The authors describe a small but interesting study concerning bone mineral
density changes in patients with microscopic colitis. This is worthy of publication
but some parts of the report require clarification:
Major compulsory revisions
1. More information is required concerning the recruitment of the individuals with
microscopic colitis e.g. consecutive patients? What is the size of this unit? Is this
a tertiary practice and how many patients do they treat with IBD in general.
Additionally, what treatments were they receiving and how many had received
steroids in the preceding 12 months?
2. More information is needed concerning the Crohn's comparison group. What
was the distibution of their disease. What medications were they taking and how
many courses of steroids had they received over the preceding 12 months?
Were there any differences in BMD in those who had purely colonic disease
compared to those with small bowel disease?
3. Why weren't patients with ulcerative colitis used as a comparison group? This
would have given further strength to the study.
4. In the results the number of patients with osteoporosis and osteopaenia are
given for those with microscopic colitis only. What numbers of patients with
Crohn's disease had reduced BMD as in the table average BMD findings are
given.
5. BMD can be affected by a large number of other factors such as smoking,
weightbearing exercise and BMI. It would be useful to show there are no
differences between the Crohn's group and the microscopic colitis group with
respect to these variables.
6. In the methods it is stated that a number of variables are recorded but they are
not reported in the results. This could be displayed in table form for all groups.
Minor essential revisions
1. Join together the final 2 sentences in the first paragraph of the introduction.
2. Patients and methods, second paragraph: budesonide.
3. Methods, paragraph 6: parathormone; thyroid.
4. Discussion, paragraphs 6, 7 and final: inappropriate use of colon and
semicolon.
5. Conclusion, final paragraph: suggest rewording.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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