Reviewer's report
Title:Bile composition in Alagille Syndrome and PFIC patients having Partial
External Biliary Diversion
Version: 1Date:19 May 2008
Reviewer: Juerg Reichen
Reviewer's report:
Emerick and colleagues report on biliary composition before and after partial
external biliary diversion (PEBD) in patients with Alagille's syndrome (AS) or
progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC) either due to mutations in the
FIC1 gene or the BSEP gene. Response to extrabiliary diversion was seen in 3/3
AS patients, 3/4 PFIC patients with the FIC1 mutation and 1/3 with the BSEP
mutation.
MAJOR COMPULSORY REVISIONS:
1. Obviously, all patients were treated with ursodeoxycholic acid at the time of
PEBD; this should be stated and the dose given in the methods section.
2. Details on bile collection are scant; apparently, a 3 - 4 h specimen was
collected. It should be stated whether patients were fasted during collection since
this could influence bile composition.
3. The authors use pruritis throughout the manuscript. Unfortunately, pruritis and
pruritus are used interchangeably in English. In my opinion this is wrong: in Latin
there is a word pruritus which describes itching. Please, use the correct spelling -
pruritus is not an inflammatory condition which pruritis would seem to imply.
4. As indicated by the standard deviations, there was a wide range of most
values. With this small sample size, nothing can be said about normality of
distribution. Therefore, indication of median and ranges would be more
appropriate than mean±standard deviation (which implies normal distribution). It
follows, that analysis of variance by Kruskal-Wallis testing would be preferable to
parametric ANOVA.
5. In figure 3, individual values would be more informative than the box-plots.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Bile composition in Alagille Syndrome and PFIC patients having Partial
External Biliary Diversion
Version: 1Date:19 May 2008
Reviewer: Juerg Reichen
Reviewer's report:
Emerick and colleagues report on biliary composition before and after partial
external biliary diversion (PEBD) in patients with Alagille's syndrome (AS) or
progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC) either due to mutations in the
FIC1 gene or the BSEP gene. Response to extrabiliary diversion was seen in 3/3
AS patients, 3/4 PFIC patients with the FIC1 mutation and 1/3 with the BSEP
mutation.
MAJOR COMPULSORY REVISIONS:
1. Obviously, all patients were treated with ursodeoxycholic acid at the time of
PEBD; this should be stated and the dose given in the methods section.
2. Details on bile collection are scant; apparently, a 3 - 4 h specimen was
collected. It should be stated whether patients were fasted during collection since
this could influence bile composition.
3. The authors use pruritis throughout the manuscript. Unfortunately, pruritis and
pruritus are used interchangeably in English. In my opinion this is wrong: in Latin
there is a word pruritus which describes itching. Please, use the correct spelling -
pruritus is not an inflammatory condition which pruritis would seem to imply.
4. As indicated by the standard deviations, there was a wide range of most
values. With this small sample size, nothing can be said about normality of
distribution. Therefore, indication of median and ranges would be more
appropriate than mean±standard deviation (which implies normal distribution). It
follows, that analysis of variance by Kruskal-Wallis testing would be preferable to
parametric ANOVA.
5. In figure 3, individual values would be more informative than the box-plots.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Bile composition in Alagille Syndrome and PFIC patients having Partial
External Biliary Diversion
Version: 1Date:19 May 2008
Reviewer: Juerg Reichen
Reviewer's report:
Emerick and colleagues report on biliary composition before and after partial
external biliary diversion (PEBD) in patients with Alagille's syndrome (AS) or
progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC) either due to mutations in the
FIC1 gene or the BSEP gene. Response to extrabiliary diversion was seen in 3/3
AS patients, 3/4 PFIC patients with the FIC1 mutation and 1/3 with the BSEP
mutation.
MAJOR COMPULSORY REVISIONS:
1. Obviously, all patients were treated with ursodeoxycholic acid at the time of
PEBD; this should be stated and the dose given in the methods section.
2. Details on bile collection are scant; apparently, a 3 - 4 h specimen was
collected. It should be stated whether patients were fasted during collection since
this could influence bile composition.
3. The authors use pruritis throughout the manuscript. Unfortunately, pruritis and
pruritus are used interchangeably in English. In my opinion this is wrong: in Latin
there is a word pruritus which describes itching. Please, use the correct spelling -
pruritus is not an inflammatory condition which pruritis would seem to imply.
4. As indicated by the standard deviations, there was a wide range of most
values. With this small sample size, nothing can be said about normality of
distribution. Therefore, indication of median and ranges would be more
appropriate than mean±standard deviation (which implies normal distribution). It
follows, that analysis of variance by Kruskal-Wallis testing would be preferable to
parametric ANOVA.
5. In figure 3, individual values would be more informative than the box-plots.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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