Reviewer's report
Title:Celiac Disease Profile in the Mediterranean Area
Version:2Date:22 October 2013
Reviewer: Stefano Guandalini
Reviewer's report:
The paper reports a large multicenter collaborative effort to appreciate the
current status of celiac disease in children in a vast part of the Mediterranean
basin, aiming at providing the basis for local health care providers to tailor their
various diagnostic approach in an efficient way.
This reviewer finds the paper interesting, and has these minor critiques:
I. Page 6: "Clinical manifestations varied greatly according to age. Infants (1–5
years) and young children (6–11 years)..". Cannot define infants subjects
between 1-5 years: infants are babies below 1 year. More importantly, in Table 1
there is no differentiation of age according to presenting symptoms, while this
would be an interesting data to show.
II. Page 6, under "Biopsy". I assume T1, T2 etc. refer to the Marsh score (this is
not stated in the text). If this is the case, then I would be hesitant to describe as
"mild lesions" T3a.
III. Page 7, the title for 3.5 should be better phrased in English as "When could
the biopsy be omitted?"
IV. Page 8: "The basic assumption that tTG antibodies predict severe mucosal
damage is not confirmed". While this is indeed apparent from the authors' data,
this statement that conflicts with a large body of published previous evidence to
the contrary would deserve a more in-depth comment by the authors: what could
be the reasons for this unexpected finding? Was a pathology revision centrally
done (either on all biopsies or only on samples)? Could it be that the ELISA test
for tTG was less reliably performed in some areas?
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:Celiac Disease Profile in the Mediterranean Area
Version:2Date:22 October 2013
Reviewer: Stefano Guandalini
Reviewer's report:
The paper reports a large multicenter collaborative effort to appreciate the
current status of celiac disease in children in a vast part of the Mediterranean
basin, aiming at providing the basis for local health care providers to tailor their
various diagnostic approach in an efficient way.
This reviewer finds the paper interesting, and has these minor critiques:
I. Page 6: "Clinical manifestations varied greatly according to age. Infants (1–5
years) and young children (6–11 years)..". Cannot define infants subjects
between 1-5 years: infants are babies below 1 year. More importantly, in Table 1
there is no differentiation of age according to presenting symptoms, while this
would be an interesting data to show.
II. Page 6, under "Biopsy". I assume T1, T2 etc. refer to the Marsh score (this is
not stated in the text). If this is the case, then I would be hesitant to describe as
"mild lesions" T3a.
III. Page 7, the title for 3.5 should be better phrased in English as "When could
the biopsy be omitted?"
IV. Page 8: "The basic assumption that tTG antibodies predict severe mucosal
damage is not confirmed". While this is indeed apparent from the authors' data,
this statement that conflicts with a large body of published previous evidence to
the contrary would deserve a more in-depth comment by the authors: what could
be the reasons for this unexpected finding? Was a pathology revision centrally
done (either on all biopsies or only on samples)? Could it be that the ELISA test
for tTG was less reliably performed in some areas?
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:Celiac Disease Profile in the Mediterranean Area
Version:2Date:22 October 2013
Reviewer: Stefano Guandalini
Reviewer's report:
The paper reports a large multicenter collaborative effort to appreciate the
current status of celiac disease in children in a vast part of the Mediterranean
basin, aiming at providing the basis for local health care providers to tailor their
various diagnostic approach in an efficient way.
This reviewer finds the paper interesting, and has these minor critiques:
I. Page 6: "Clinical manifestations varied greatly according to age. Infants (1–5
years) and young children (6–11 years)..". Cannot define infants subjects
between 1-5 years: infants are babies below 1 year. More importantly, in Table 1
there is no differentiation of age according to presenting symptoms, while this
would be an interesting data to show.
II. Page 6, under "Biopsy". I assume T1, T2 etc. refer to the Marsh score (this is
not stated in the text). If this is the case, then I would be hesitant to describe as
"mild lesions" T3a.
III. Page 7, the title for 3.5 should be better phrased in English as "When could
the biopsy be omitted?"
IV. Page 8: "The basic assumption that tTG antibodies predict severe mucosal
damage is not confirmed". While this is indeed apparent from the authors' data,
this statement that conflicts with a large body of published previous evidence to
the contrary would deserve a more in-depth comment by the authors: what could
be the reasons for this unexpected finding? Was a pathology revision centrally
done (either on all biopsies or only on samples)? Could it be that the ELISA test
for tTG was less reliably performed in some areas?
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