Reviewer's report
Title:The clinical overlap between functional dyspepsia and irritable bowel
syndrome according to Rome III criteria
Version: 2Date:18 August 2008
Reviewer: Giorgio Bedogni
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
None
Minor Essential Revisions
P2. Abstract: You may wish to write “the only significant predictor” instead of
“significant predictor”.
P4. Giving the needed sample size is enough. I suggest to avoid reporting the
formula because it requires explanation of symbols, e.g u and sin (it appears that
PDF processing has corrupted some characters). Just a question: if 385 subjects
were enough why did you enroll about 8 times more subject ? This has no ethical
implications for the present study so that this is not a weakness but just much
more work for researchers.
P6. Please, specify that the (excellent) ICC applies to the summary score. Give
also the number of patients on whom the validation study was performed.
P9 Please, write dichotomous variable instead of binomial variable, since the
latter is a statistical distribution.
P12 Please, delete “the enrollment was some biased”. The description as
limitation is enough.
P12 Just a question: why do you think a larger sample is needed ? I agree with
the need of a confirmatory multi-center study but, provided that the prevalence of
the outcome is not extremely low in the other centers, the sample size should not
be very high (see point 4).
Tables 3 and 4: please, specify that these are multivariable models in the legend
(use the term multivariate if you prefer).
Discretionary Revisions
None
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:The clinical overlap between functional dyspepsia and irritable bowel
syndrome according to Rome III criteria
Version: 2Date:18 August 2008
Reviewer: Giorgio Bedogni
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
None
Minor Essential Revisions
P2. Abstract: You may wish to write “the only significant predictor” instead of
“significant predictor”.
P4. Giving the needed sample size is enough. I suggest to avoid reporting the
formula because it requires explanation of symbols, e.g u and sin (it appears that
PDF processing has corrupted some characters). Just a question: if 385 subjects
were enough why did you enroll about 8 times more subject ? This has no ethical
implications for the present study so that this is not a weakness but just much
more work for researchers.
P6. Please, specify that the (excellent) ICC applies to the summary score. Give
also the number of patients on whom the validation study was performed.
P9 Please, write dichotomous variable instead of binomial variable, since the
latter is a statistical distribution.
P12 Please, delete “the enrollment was some biased”. The description as
limitation is enough.
P12 Just a question: why do you think a larger sample is needed ? I agree with
the need of a confirmatory multi-center study but, provided that the prevalence of
the outcome is not extremely low in the other centers, the sample size should not
be very high (see point 4).
Tables 3 and 4: please, specify that these are multivariable models in the legend
(use the term multivariate if you prefer).
Discretionary Revisions
None
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:The clinical overlap between functional dyspepsia and irritable bowel
syndrome according to Rome III criteria
Version: 2Date:18 August 2008
Reviewer: Giorgio Bedogni
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
None
Minor Essential Revisions
P2. Abstract: You may wish to write “the only significant predictor” instead of
“significant predictor”.
P4. Giving the needed sample size is enough. I suggest to avoid reporting the
formula because it requires explanation of symbols, e.g u and sin (it appears that
PDF processing has corrupted some characters). Just a question: if 385 subjects
were enough why did you enroll about 8 times more subject ? This has no ethical
implications for the present study so that this is not a weakness but just much
more work for researchers.
P6. Please, specify that the (excellent) ICC applies to the summary score. Give
also the number of patients on whom the validation study was performed.
P9 Please, write dichotomous variable instead of binomial variable, since the
latter is a statistical distribution.
P12 Please, delete “the enrollment was some biased”. The description as
limitation is enough.
P12 Just a question: why do you think a larger sample is needed ? I agree with
the need of a confirmatory multi-center study but, provided that the prevalence of
the outcome is not extremely low in the other centers, the sample size should not
be very high (see point 4).
Tables 3 and 4: please, specify that these are multivariable models in the legend
(use the term multivariate if you prefer).
Discretionary Revisions
None
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