Reviewer's report
Title:Incidence of non Helicobacter pylori species in patients presenting with
dyspepsia
Version: 1Date:7 July 2011
Reviewer: Mark Whary
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. The level of exposure to dogs and cats, particularly wild dogs and cats, is not
well defined and is unlikely to be of sufficient contact to be relevant. The abstract
states that pet contact was minimal so this feature should be down played.
2. Last part of introduction states that study aim was to analyze effects of
coinfection on gastric pathology – minimal gastric pathology data is provided and
nothing is described about this aim in the conclusion of the abstract.
3. Methods – page 7 sequencing was done for products using H felis and
heilmannii primers – was the genus level product (only 400 bp vs 1200bp which
is available) and H pylori-specific products sequenced? The amplification
products are relatively short and could be mis-identified.
4. Table 3 depicts association between Helicobacter species and pets – why not
include H. pylori to demonstrate the validity of the statistical analysis?
5. Percent of males is 66% in abstract and 65% on page 4.
6. Page 7 estimate of sample size of 217 for H heilmanii and H felis – not clear
what this means?
7. Methods page 4 describes pets kept outside of the rooms but within the house
– what does this mean?
Minor Essential Revisions
1. Title should use the term prevalence rather than incidence since prevalence of
a health issue is the number of cases in the population at a given time, whereas
incidence describes the number of cases over time.
2. Second paragraph of Introduction – Coinfection with Helicobacter species – ref
14 is a helminth co-infection model whereas the same lab has published on
co-infections with multiple helicobacter species – so context of message is not
clear.
3. Crowding index and Boring water (a dug well?) are not defined in the Methods.
4. Table 1 – PCR reaction conditions are all the same and can be removed and
put in Methods text.
5. Fist sentence of Introduction – “several” animals underestimates helicobacter
prevalence – it has been found in most types of animals – from birds through
humans.
Discretionary Revisions
1. Should use line numbers for ease of review.
2. Inconsistent use of italics to properly indicate genus and species.
3. References not uniformly formatted.
4. Would not use term of bacilli in last sentence – not clear what type of bacilli
you are referring to.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
No conflicts of interest
Reviewer's report
Title:Incidence of non Helicobacter pylori species in patients presenting with
dyspepsia
Version: 1Date:7 July 2011
Reviewer: Mark Whary
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. The level of exposure to dogs and cats, particularly wild dogs and cats, is not
well defined and is unlikely to be of sufficient contact to be relevant. The abstract
states that pet contact was minimal so this feature should be down played.
2. Last part of introduction states that study aim was to analyze effects of
coinfection on gastric pathology – minimal gastric pathology data is provided and
nothing is described about this aim in the conclusion of the abstract.
3. Methods – page 7 sequencing was done for products using H felis and
heilmannii primers – was the genus level product (only 400 bp vs 1200bp which
is available) and H pylori-specific products sequenced? The amplification
products are relatively short and could be mis-identified.
4. Table 3 depicts association between Helicobacter species and pets – why not
include H. pylori to demonstrate the validity of the statistical analysis?
5. Percent of males is 66% in abstract and 65% on page 4.
6. Page 7 estimate of sample size of 217 for H heilmanii and H felis – not clear
what this means?
7. Methods page 4 describes pets kept outside of the rooms but within the house
– what does this mean?
Minor Essential Revisions
1. Title should use the term prevalence rather than incidence since prevalence of
a health issue is the number of cases in the population at a given time, whereas
incidence describes the number of cases over time.
2. Second paragraph of Introduction – Coinfection with Helicobacter species – ref
14 is a helminth co-infection model whereas the same lab has published on
co-infections with multiple helicobacter species – so context of message is not
clear.
3. Crowding index and Boring water (a dug well?) are not defined in the Methods.
4. Table 1 – PCR reaction conditions are all the same and can be removed and
put in Methods text.
5. Fist sentence of Introduction – “several” animals underestimates helicobacter
prevalence – it has been found in most types of animals – from birds through
humans.
Discretionary Revisions
1. Should use line numbers for ease of review.
2. Inconsistent use of italics to properly indicate genus and species.
3. References not uniformly formatted.
4. Would not use term of bacilli in last sentence – not clear what type of bacilli
you are referring to.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
No conflicts of interest
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Incidence of non Helicobacter pylori species in patients presenting with
dyspepsia
Version: 1Date:7 July 2011
Reviewer: Mark Whary
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. The level of exposure to dogs and cats, particularly wild dogs and cats, is not
well defined and is unlikely to be of sufficient contact to be relevant. The abstract
states that pet contact was minimal so this feature should be down played.
2. Last part of introduction states that study aim was to analyze effects of
coinfection on gastric pathology – minimal gastric pathology data is provided and
nothing is described about this aim in the conclusion of the abstract.
3. Methods – page 7 sequencing was done for products using H felis and
heilmannii primers – was the genus level product (only 400 bp vs 1200bp which
is available) and H pylori-specific products sequenced? The amplification
products are relatively short and could be mis-identified.
4. Table 3 depicts association between Helicobacter species and pets – why not
include H. pylori to demonstrate the validity of the statistical analysis?
5. Percent of males is 66% in abstract and 65% on page 4.
6. Page 7 estimate of sample size of 217 for H heilmanii and H felis – not clear
what this means?
7. Methods page 4 describes pets kept outside of the rooms but within the house
– what does this mean?
Minor Essential Revisions
1. Title should use the term prevalence rather than incidence since prevalence of
a health issue is the number of cases in the population at a given time, whereas
incidence describes the number of cases over time.
2. Second paragraph of Introduction – Coinfection with Helicobacter species – ref
14 is a helminth co-infection model whereas the same lab has published on
co-infections with multiple helicobacter species – so context of message is not
clear.
3. Crowding index and Boring water (a dug well?) are not defined in the Methods.
4. Table 1 – PCR reaction conditions are all the same and can be removed and
put in Methods text.
5. Fist sentence of Introduction – “several” animals underestimates helicobacter
prevalence – it has been found in most types of animals – from birds through
humans.
Discretionary Revisions
1. Should use line numbers for ease of review.
2. Inconsistent use of italics to properly indicate genus and species.
3. References not uniformly formatted.
4. Would not use term of bacilli in last sentence – not clear what type of bacilli
you are referring to.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
No conflicts of interest
assistant