Reviewer's report
Title:Excellent superiority and specificity of COBAS TaqMan HCV assay in an
early viral kinetic change during pegylated interferon-alpha 2b plus ribavirin
treatment
Version: 1Date:29 October 2008
Reviewer: Peter Ferenci
Reviewer's report:
This study compares the more sensitive TaqMan assay with the older Amplicor
assay to measure viral load in patients with hepatitis treated with PEGIFN/RBV.
The study is retrospective, so there is a potential selection bias, which may have
a major impact on the findings.
The author present their data as % decrease in viral load (text and fig.2),
conventionally one uses the log decline (should be easy to recalculate the data).
Fig 3 is hard to understand. It is mandatory not just to shown %, but the actual
number of patients. Surprisingly, 60% of Taqman neg pts. at week 12 did not an
SVR. This calls for a discussion on compliance and drug exposure. Were al
TaqMan neg. pts. realy negative or just unquantifiable? Even more unclear is
why all non SVR pts. were undetectable by the Amplicor assay.
A more useful analysis would be the time to first undetectability (see Ferenci et
al, J Hepatology 2005 – this paper describes the time dependency of SVR for the
first time) and its relation to the end of treatment response, relapse rate and SVR
Fig. 4 should have the same units for the ordinate and the abscissa – to highlight
the fact that values with the Taqman assay are higher than with the Amplicor
assay
The introduction and the methods section can be shortened at least by 50%
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Reviewer's report
Title:Excellent superiority and specificity of COBAS TaqMan HCV assay in an
early viral kinetic change during pegylated interferon-alpha 2b plus ribavirin
treatment
Version: 1Date:29 October 2008
Reviewer: Peter Ferenci
Reviewer's report:
This study compares the more sensitive TaqMan assay with the older Amplicor
assay to measure viral load in patients with hepatitis treated with PEGIFN/RBV.
The study is retrospective, so there is a potential selection bias, which may have
a major impact on the findings.
The author present their data as % decrease in viral load (text and fig.2),
conventionally one uses the log decline (should be easy to recalculate the data).
Fig 3 is hard to understand. It is mandatory not just to shown %, but the actual
number of patients. Surprisingly, 60% of Taqman neg pts. at week 12 did not an
SVR. This calls for a discussion on compliance and drug exposure. Were al
TaqMan neg. pts. realy negative or just unquantifiable? Even more unclear is
why all non SVR pts. were undetectable by the Amplicor assay.
A more useful analysis would be the time to first undetectability (see Ferenci et
al, J Hepatology 2005 – this paper describes the time dependency of SVR for the
first time) and its relation to the end of treatment response, relapse rate and SVR
Fig. 4 should have the same units for the ordinate and the abscissa – to highlight
the fact that values with the Taqman assay are higher than with the Amplicor
assay
The introduction and the methods section can be shortened at least by 50%
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Excellent superiority and specificity of COBAS TaqMan HCV assay in an
early viral kinetic change during pegylated interferon-alpha 2b plus ribavirin
treatment
Version: 1Date:29 October 2008
Reviewer: Peter Ferenci
Reviewer's report:
This study compares the more sensitive TaqMan assay with the older Amplicor
assay to measure viral load in patients with hepatitis treated with PEGIFN/RBV.
The study is retrospective, so there is a potential selection bias, which may have
a major impact on the findings.
The author present their data as % decrease in viral load (text and fig.2),
conventionally one uses the log decline (should be easy to recalculate the data).
Fig 3 is hard to understand. It is mandatory not just to shown %, but the actual
number of patients. Surprisingly, 60% of Taqman neg pts. at week 12 did not an
SVR. This calls for a discussion on compliance and drug exposure. Were al
TaqMan neg. pts. realy negative or just unquantifiable? Even more unclear is
why all non SVR pts. were undetectable by the Amplicor assay.
A more useful analysis would be the time to first undetectability (see Ferenci et
al, J Hepatology 2005 – this paper describes the time dependency of SVR for the
first time) and its relation to the end of treatment response, relapse rate and SVR
Fig. 4 should have the same units for the ordinate and the abscissa – to highlight
the fact that values with the Taqman assay are higher than with the Amplicor
assay
The introduction and the methods section can be shortened at least by 50%
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'
assistant