Reviewer's report
Title:Potential blood-based markers of celiac disease
Version:1Date:20 June 2014
Reviewer: Peter Mooney
Reviewer's report:
Overall an excellent study and the authors should be congratulated for
attempting to improve the diagnosis of coeliac disease
Major revision
A couple of points - The correlation between the potential novel markers and
Marsh grade was moderate at best and appears to be inferior to the correlation
between Marsh grade and current standard serology.
"Significant correlations were observed between Marsh grade (all cases) and
levels of 224 CXCL11 protein (Fig. 2; Spearman rank correlation coefficient (rs) =
0.50), and IL21 and IL15 225 mRNA (rs = -0.46 for both, data not shown)."
Can the authors explain this? Was there a cut off value that could reliably
diagnose coeliac disease? Providing a sensitivity/specificity analysis of current
serology is necessary. Could the authors potentially provide a ROC curve
analysis of the novel markers (as well as current serology) as this may provide
the best analysis of the differences between the tests
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:Potential blood-based markers of celiac disease
Version:1Date:20 June 2014
Reviewer: Peter Mooney
Reviewer's report:
Overall an excellent study and the authors should be congratulated for
attempting to improve the diagnosis of coeliac disease
Major revision
A couple of points - The correlation between the potential novel markers and
Marsh grade was moderate at best and appears to be inferior to the correlation
between Marsh grade and current standard serology.
"Significant correlations were observed between Marsh grade (all cases) and
levels of 224 CXCL11 protein (Fig. 2; Spearman rank correlation coefficient (rs) =
0.50), and IL21 and IL15 225 mRNA (rs = -0.46 for both, data not shown)."
Can the authors explain this? Was there a cut off value that could reliably
diagnose coeliac disease? Providing a sensitivity/specificity analysis of current
serology is necessary. Could the authors potentially provide a ROC curve
analysis of the novel markers (as well as current serology) as this may provide
the best analysis of the differences between the tests
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:Potential blood-based markers of celiac disease
Version:1Date:20 June 2014
Reviewer: Peter Mooney
Reviewer's report:
Overall an excellent study and the authors should be congratulated for
attempting to improve the diagnosis of coeliac disease
Major revision
A couple of points - The correlation between the potential novel markers and
Marsh grade was moderate at best and appears to be inferior to the correlation
between Marsh grade and current standard serology.
"Significant correlations were observed between Marsh grade (all cases) and
levels of 224 CXCL11 protein (Fig. 2; Spearman rank correlation coefficient (rs) =
0.50), and IL21 and IL15 225 mRNA (rs = -0.46 for both, data not shown)."
Can the authors explain this? Was there a cut off value that could reliably
diagnose coeliac disease? Providing a sensitivity/specificity analysis of current
serology is necessary. Could the authors potentially provide a ROC curve
analysis of the novel markers (as well as current serology) as this may provide
the best analysis of the differences between the tests
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
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