Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Analysis of gastroscopy results among healthy people undergoing a
medical checkup: A retrospective study
Version: 
1 
Date: 
29 Jul 2020
Reviewer: 
Ian Beales
Reviewer's report:
The revised version of the paper is much improved. The written English is
clearer and the paper is much easier to comprehend. There is nothing particularly
novel in the paper but it does contain data on endoscopic findings in a large
cohort of apparently normal asymptomatic subjects. Thus, the data are somewhat
interesting from an epidemiological perspective. A few points still require further
clarification.
1. Although it is clear from the responses that what is actually being measured is
"endoscopic findings" and not "disease," the authors are still using disease freely
throughout the paper. This is confusing. I suggest that "disease" is not used at all
and either "endoscopic findings" or "pathological findings" used.
2. Presumably, the results concerning chronic and non-chronic gastritis refers to
pathological diagnoses?
3. The apparent high prevalence of gastritis is interesting but may well stem from
the rather wide definition used. The authors must include the definition of
gastritis used throughout the paper. 
4. Despite the high prevalence of gastritis is seems only a minority of subjects
had biopsies taken to look into this further. Is this the case? Why was biopsy
sampling so selective?
5. Please provide numerical data for the different grades of esophagitis.
6. The authors must acknowledge, and include in the possible weaknesses of the
study, the possible lack of quality control in the endoscopy and reporting.
Findings such a cervical inlet patches and esophageal glycogenic acanthosis are
reportedly very common in other populations but seem very rare her. This could
reflect the characteristics of this population or more likely lack of quality control
in the endoscopy and reporting.
7. Given that the authors have pathological data on a significant number of
subjects, it is surprising that they have not provided data concerning the
prevalence of atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia. These are, of course,
clinically more important findings that just "gastritis" and given the current
uncertainties over the accuracy of the endoscopic diagnosis of these pre-
malignancy conditions, further data concerning this would be useful.
Publons Reviewer Recognition
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Publons’ privacy policy 
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Yes
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following
questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 I agree for my report to be made available
under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
) if this manuscript is accepted for
publication. Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published
report have been included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not
be published.
If you are not happy for us to publish this report, please contact the editorial
office before completing the review.
If you wish, you can include your name in your published report. Please note
you must decide whether to include your name at the start of the process and
confirm this decision whenever prompted. If you change your decision later, we
will not be able to publish your name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please publish my name with my
report.
Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes
Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Analysis of gastroscopy results among healthy people undergoing a
medical checkup: A retrospective study
Version: 
1 
Date: 
29 Jul 2020
Reviewer: 
Ian Beales
Reviewer's report:
The revised version of the paper is much improved. The written English is
clearer and the paper is much easier to comprehend. There is nothing particularly
novel in the paper but it does contain data on endoscopic findings in a large
cohort of apparently normal asymptomatic subjects. Thus, the data are somewhat
interesting from an epidemiological perspective. A few points still require further
clarification.
1. Although it is clear from the responses that what is actually being measured is
"endoscopic findings" and not "disease," the authors are still using disease freely
throughout the paper. This is confusing. I suggest that "disease" is not used at all
and either "endoscopic findings" or "pathological findings" used.
2. Presumably, the results concerning chronic and non-chronic gastritis refers to
pathological diagnoses?
3. The apparent high prevalence of gastritis is interesting but may well stem from
the rather wide definition used. The authors must include the definition of
gastritis used throughout the paper. 
4. Despite the high prevalence of gastritis is seems only a minority of subjects
had biopsies taken to look into this further. Is this the case? Why was biopsy
sampling so selective?
5. Please provide numerical data for the different grades of esophagitis.
6. The authors must acknowledge, and include in the possible weaknesses of the
study, the possible lack of quality control in the endoscopy and reporting.
Findings such a cervical inlet patches and esophageal glycogenic acanthosis are
reportedly very common in other populations but seem very rare her. This could
reflect the characteristics of this population or more likely lack of quality control
in the endoscopy and reporting.
7. Given that the authors have pathological data on a significant number of
subjects, it is surprising that they have not provided data concerning the
prevalence of atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia. These are, of course,
clinically more important findings that just "gastritis" and given the current
uncertainties over the accuracy of the endoscopic diagnosis of these pre-
malignancy conditions, further data concerning this would be useful.
Publons Reviewer Recognition
. Springer Nature can send verification of this
review directly to Publons (a subsidiary of Clarivate Analytics). If you would
like to take advantage of this service, please click on the “Yes” option below.
Your name, email address, title of the reviewed manuscript, name of the journal,
and date of your review submission (the “Review Data”) will then be transmitted
to Publons upon publication of the manuscript. If you have already registered at
Publons, they will notify you of the receipt of this review and update your profile
as per your settings and their policy. If you are not registered with Publons, you
will receive an email from them asking you to register in order for them to be
able to recognize your review on your new profile page. Publons may use the
Review Data to generate derivative metadata for the benefit of Publons and you
as a reviewer, carefully considering the sensitivity of such information. For
example, Publons may verify your record as a reviewer by updating your profile
published on its webservice if you have registered for such service or help
editors to identify candidate reviewers. Please find the details of processing in
Publons’ privacy policy 
https://publons.com/about/terms
Yes
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following
questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 I agree for my report to be made available
under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
) if this manuscript is accepted for
publication. Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published
report have been included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not
be published.
If you are not happy for us to publish this report, please contact the editorial
office before completing the review.
If you wish, you can include your name in your published report. Please note
you must decide whether to include your name at the start of the process and
confirm this decision whenever prompted. If you change your decision later, we
will not be able to publish your name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please publish my name with my
report.
Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Analysis of gastroscopy results among healthy people undergoing a
medical checkup: A retrospective study
Version: 
1 
Date: 
29 Jul 2020
Reviewer: 
Ian Beales
Reviewer's report:
The revised version of the paper is much improved. The written English is
clearer and the paper is much easier to comprehend. There is nothing particularly
novel in the paper but it does contain data on endoscopic findings in a large
cohort of apparently normal asymptomatic subjects. Thus, the data are somewhat
interesting from an epidemiological perspective. A few points still require further
clarification.
1. Although it is clear from the responses that what is actually being measured is
"endoscopic findings" and not "disease," the authors are still using disease freely
throughout the paper. This is confusing. I suggest that "disease" is not used at all
and either "endoscopic findings" or "pathological findings" used.
2. Presumably, the results concerning chronic and non-chronic gastritis refers to
pathological diagnoses?
3. The apparent high prevalence of gastritis is interesting but may well stem from
the rather wide definition used. The authors must include the definition of
gastritis used throughout the paper. 
4. Despite the high prevalence of gastritis is seems only a minority of subjects
had biopsies taken to look into this further. Is this the case? Why was biopsy
sampling so selective?
5. Please provide numerical data for the different grades of esophagitis.
6. The authors must acknowledge, and include in the possible weaknesses of the
study, the possible lack of quality control in the endoscopy and reporting.
Findings such a cervical inlet patches and esophageal glycogenic acanthosis are
reportedly very common in other populations but seem very rare her. This could
reflect the characteristics of this population or more likely lack of quality control
in the endoscopy and reporting.
7. Given that the authors have pathological data on a significant number of
subjects, it is surprising that they have not provided data concerning the
prevalence of atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia. These are, of course,
clinically more important findings that just "gastritis" and given the current
uncertainties over the accuracy of the endoscopic diagnosis of these pre-
malignancy conditions, further data concerning this would be useful.
Publons Reviewer Recognition
. Springer Nature can send verification of this
review directly to Publons (a subsidiary of Clarivate Analytics). If you would
like to take advantage of this service, please click on the “Yes” option below.
Your name, email address, title of the reviewed manuscript, name of the journal,
and date of your review submission (the “Review Data”) will then be transmitted
to Publons upon publication of the manuscript. If you have already registered at
Publons, they will notify you of the receipt of this review and update your profile
as per your settings and their policy. If you are not registered with Publons, you
will receive an email from them asking you to register in order for them to be
able to recognize your review on your new profile page. Publons may use the
Review Data to generate derivative metadata for the benefit of Publons and you
as a reviewer, carefully considering the sensitivity of such information. For
example, Publons may verify your record as a reviewer by updating your profile
published on its webservice if you have registered for such service or help
editors to identify candidate reviewers. Please find the details of processing in
Publons’ privacy policy 
https://publons.com/about/terms
Yes
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following
questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 I agree for my report to be made available
under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
) if this manuscript is accepted for
publication. Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published
report have been included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not
be published.
If you are not happy for us to publish this report, please contact the editorial
office before completing the review.
If you wish, you can include your name in your published report. Please note
you must decide whether to include your name at the start of the process and
confirm this decision whenever prompted. If you change your decision later, we
will not be able to publish your name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please publish my name with my
report.
Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes
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