Reviewer's report
Title:Early ultrasonographic detection and assessment of the severity of Crohn's
disease recurrence after curative ileal resection
Version: 1Date:10 March 2010
Reviewer: Luisa Guidi
Reviewer's report:
The paper deals with a hot topic in Crohn's disease (CD) patient's follow up: the
early detection and assessment of post surgical recurrence, with emphasis to the
transmural extension of recurrent CD lesions.
The Authors employ a non invasive technique as SICUS with oral contrast. Their
method appears particularly useful in this setting, allowing the Authors to
describe a good correlation with the endoscopic score. The paper is very
interesting and adds new findings to the knowledge in the field. The study is well
designed and conducted and clearly described.
However, I have some questions regarding the study design. It is described as a
prospective follow up study in which 58 patients were enrolled at the time of
bowel resection. Successively the patients were submitted to a SICUS and a
colonoscopy at 6 months and 1 year and at 6-12 months thereafter.
1. Did the 58 patients experience a colonoscopy every 6-12 months after the first
follow up after surgery?
2. How long have been the patients followed? According to the statement in the
second paragraph of the RESULTS section, the longest follow up was 24
months, so how do the Authors explain the median interval from surgery and
evaluation reported in table 2 for each Rutgeerts score (33.3/36/59.6 months
respectively)?
3. How were selected the 111 pairs of SICUS and colonoscopy included in the
analysis?
4. How many patients had sequential evaluations included in the analysis? ( A
table of results per single study interval could probably be helpful)
5. In fig 2B the asterisk relative to the significant difference between score 4 and
score 1 (p<0.001) is missing.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
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:Early ultrasonographic detection and assessment of the severity of Crohn's
disease recurrence after curative ileal resection
Version: 1Date:10 March 2010
Reviewer: Luisa Guidi
Reviewer's report:
The paper deals with a hot topic in Crohn's disease (CD) patient's follow up: the
early detection and assessment of post surgical recurrence, with emphasis to the
transmural extension of recurrent CD lesions.
The Authors employ a non invasive technique as SICUS with oral contrast. Their
method appears particularly useful in this setting, allowing the Authors to
describe a good correlation with the endoscopic score. The paper is very
interesting and adds new findings to the knowledge in the field. The study is well
designed and conducted and clearly described.
However, I have some questions regarding the study design. It is described as a
prospective follow up study in which 58 patients were enrolled at the time of
bowel resection. Successively the patients were submitted to a SICUS and a
colonoscopy at 6 months and 1 year and at 6-12 months thereafter.
1. Did the 58 patients experience a colonoscopy every 6-12 months after the first
follow up after surgery?
2. How long have been the patients followed? According to the statement in the
second paragraph of the RESULTS section, the longest follow up was 24
months, so how do the Authors explain the median interval from surgery and
evaluation reported in table 2 for each Rutgeerts score (33.3/36/59.6 months
respectively)?
3. How were selected the 111 pairs of SICUS and colonoscopy included in the
analysis?
4. How many patients had sequential evaluations included in the analysis? ( A
table of results per single study interval could probably be helpful)
5. In fig 2B the asterisk relative to the significant difference between score 4 and
score 1 (p<0.001) is missing.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
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:Early ultrasonographic detection and assessment of the severity of Crohn's
disease recurrence after curative ileal resection
Version: 1Date:10 March 2010
Reviewer: Luisa Guidi
Reviewer's report:
The paper deals with a hot topic in Crohn's disease (CD) patient's follow up: the
early detection and assessment of post surgical recurrence, with emphasis to the
transmural extension of recurrent CD lesions.
The Authors employ a non invasive technique as SICUS with oral contrast. Their
method appears particularly useful in this setting, allowing the Authors to
describe a good correlation with the endoscopic score. The paper is very
interesting and adds new findings to the knowledge in the field. The study is well
designed and conducted and clearly described.
However, I have some questions regarding the study design. It is described as a
prospective follow up study in which 58 patients were enrolled at the time of
bowel resection. Successively the patients were submitted to a SICUS and a
colonoscopy at 6 months and 1 year and at 6-12 months thereafter.
1. Did the 58 patients experience a colonoscopy every 6-12 months after the first
follow up after surgery?
2. How long have been the patients followed? According to the statement in the
second paragraph of the RESULTS section, the longest follow up was 24
months, so how do the Authors explain the median interval from surgery and
evaluation reported in table 2 for each Rutgeerts score (33.3/36/59.6 months
respectively)?
3. How were selected the 111 pairs of SICUS and colonoscopy included in the
analysis?
4. How many patients had sequential evaluations included in the analysis? ( A
table of results per single study interval could probably be helpful)
5. In fig 2B the asterisk relative to the significant difference between score 4 and
score 1 (p<0.001) is missing.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
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