Reviewer's report
Title:Role of Life Events in the Presence of Colon Polyps among African
Americans
Version: 1Date:2 March 2013
Reviewer: Upender Manne
Reviewer's report:
This manuscript by Hassan et al. addresses the important issue of stressful life
events correlation with colon premalignant lesion occurrence and colorectal
cancer risk. The primary strength of this manuscript is the random nature of
patient recruitment, because since patients undergo colonoscopy for various
reasons (e.g. screening, surveillance, follow up), including all types of patients
provide the natural setting rather than including a selective set of patients. The
data is also addressing the suspected role of stress in oncogenic events. The
presented data is sound and the statistical analyses are well described and
performed. The study population of this study (African American) is major
strength due to lack of sufficient data on this race/ethnic group. The conclusions
are supported by their data.
Some of the minor concerns that needs to be addressed to improve the quality of
manuscript, they are
Minor Essential Revisions:
1) The word "life events" is stated many times in the manuscript as "life event".
Furthermore, the questionnaire also refers to "life events." Thus, this should be
changed to ‘life events’ in the entire manuscript.
2) The title in the Results section should be changed to "Participants'
characteristics." The same applies to Table 1 title: "participants'...."
3) The abbreviation H/O at the bottom of Table 1 is not a common practice, thus,
"16 has H/O polyps unclear, needs to be expanded"
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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:Role of Life Events in the Presence of Colon Polyps among African
Americans
Version: 1Date:2 March 2013
Reviewer: Upender Manne
Reviewer's report:
This manuscript by Hassan et al. addresses the important issue of stressful life
events correlation with colon premalignant lesion occurrence and colorectal
cancer risk. The primary strength of this manuscript is the random nature of
patient recruitment, because since patients undergo colonoscopy for various
reasons (e.g. screening, surveillance, follow up), including all types of patients
provide the natural setting rather than including a selective set of patients. The
data is also addressing the suspected role of stress in oncogenic events. The
presented data is sound and the statistical analyses are well described and
performed. The study population of this study (African American) is major
strength due to lack of sufficient data on this race/ethnic group. The conclusions
are supported by their data.
Some of the minor concerns that needs to be addressed to improve the quality of
manuscript, they are
Minor Essential Revisions:
1) The word "life events" is stated many times in the manuscript as "life event".
Furthermore, the questionnaire also refers to "life events." Thus, this should be
changed to ‘life events’ in the entire manuscript.
2) The title in the Results section should be changed to "Participants'
characteristics." The same applies to Table 1 title: "participants'...."
3) The abbreviation H/O at the bottom of Table 1 is not a common practice, thus,
"16 has H/O polyps unclear, needs to be expanded"
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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:Role of Life Events in the Presence of Colon Polyps among African
Americans
Version: 1Date:2 March 2013
Reviewer: Upender Manne
Reviewer's report:
This manuscript by Hassan et al. addresses the important issue of stressful life
events correlation with colon premalignant lesion occurrence and colorectal
cancer risk. The primary strength of this manuscript is the random nature of
patient recruitment, because since patients undergo colonoscopy for various
reasons (e.g. screening, surveillance, follow up), including all types of patients
provide the natural setting rather than including a selective set of patients. The
data is also addressing the suspected role of stress in oncogenic events. The
presented data is sound and the statistical analyses are well described and
performed. The study population of this study (African American) is major
strength due to lack of sufficient data on this race/ethnic group. The conclusions
are supported by their data.
Some of the minor concerns that needs to be addressed to improve the quality of
manuscript, they are
Minor Essential Revisions:
1) The word "life events" is stated many times in the manuscript as "life event".
Furthermore, the questionnaire also refers to "life events." Thus, this should be
changed to ‘life events’ in the entire manuscript.
2) The title in the Results section should be changed to "Participants'
characteristics." The same applies to Table 1 title: "participants'...."
3) The abbreviation H/O at the bottom of Table 1 is not a common practice, thus,
"16 has H/O polyps unclear, needs to be expanded"
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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