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Clinical Relevance of vacA, cagA, and iceA Genotypes of Helicobacter pylori
By Prof. Laila Nimri , Dr. Kamal E Bani-hani , Dr. Ismail Matalka , Dr. Marwa Ibrahim
Submited on: 29 Nov 2011 04:31:52 PM GMT
Published on: 30 Nov 2011 09:41:09 AM GMT
 
Clinical Relevance of vacA, cagA, and iceA Genotypes of Helicobacter pylori
Posted by Dr. Leandro Lobo on 09 Aug 2012 06:12:17 PM GMT

  • What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?

  • Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
    none
  • Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
    none
  • Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
    none
  • If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
    none
  • Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
    none
  • Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
    none
  • Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
    none
  • Other Comments:

    The authors use PCR analysis to perform surveillance on the prevalence of a set of virulence genes in Helicobacter pylori strains collected from patients with gastritis from a hospital in Jordan. The paper correlates the presence/absence of these genes with clinical symptoms based on histological analysis of biopsy specimens. The paper is extremely important to determine the virulence profile of the strains circulating in that area/hospital.Several authors have documented the relationship between virulence genes and clinical presentation in H. pylori. Nevertheless, the claims are novel in the geographical context of the study. Information about prevalent strains in that area and the relationship between the genetic profile and disease outcome are important to aid medical personnel determine the course of treatment.

     

    The authors cite relevant literature on the subject and the claims are in agreement with previous studies published on this subject. The methodology is correctly applied and appropriate to support the claims. 

     

    The paper would greatly benefit from a grammatical revision. Attention should be specially placed on typing errors, such as spacing between words. The "Results" section should be revised thoroughly. Sub-topics are not appropriately placed.

    At some points of the results section the authors simply refer to the tables without further explanation, these points should be explained on the text, for example "The presence of more than one genotype asnd their association with the clinical outcome is presented in table 3"

    The authors mention that iceA2 was not correlated with duodenitis, which was present in 75% of the samples. Is this affirmation correct?

     

  • Competing interests:
    No
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    I have been working with Gram negative pathogens for 10 years, mostly studying virulence factors and the interaction of the bacteria with the host. 

  • How to cite:  Lobo L .Clinical Relevance of vacA, cagA, and iceA Genotypes of Helicobacter pylori [Review of the article 'Clinical Relevance of vacA, cagA, and iceA Genotypes of Helicobacter pylori ' by Ibrahim M].WebmedCentral 2011;3(8):WMCRW002176
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Clinical Relevance of vacA, cagA, and iceA Genotypes of Helicobacter pylori
Posted by Dr. Guadalupe Garcia on 05 Dec 2011 06:31:19 PM GMT

1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Yes
3 Is this a new and original contribution? Yes
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? No
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? Yes
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? No
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? Yes
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? Yes
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? No
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:
    1. In the Methods section, should be mentioned albeit briefly, the detection and genotyping of virulence genes by PCR, and present the corresponding primer pairs.
    2. Some words are not separated in the text.
    3. Need to add references to 2009-11.
  • Competing interests:
    No
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
    I have no experience with Helicobacter, but I have with Campylobacter for 2 years, which are similar genders.
  • How to cite:  Garcia G .Clinical Relevance of vacA, cagA, and iceA Genotypes of Helicobacter pylori[Review of the article 'Clinical Relevance of vacA, cagA, and iceA Genotypes of Helicobacter pylori ' by Ibrahim M].WebmedCentral 2011;2(12):WMCRW001205
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Thank you for your professional review of this article. I'd like to respond to the some of the comments below: Sub-topics are not appropriately placed: This is the website team work, some format has been changed when converted to PDF file and the website formate to columns. At some points of the results section the authors simply refer to the tables without further explanation, these points should be explained on the text, for example "The presence of more than one genotype and their association with the clinical outcome is presented in table 3" Response: more details are in the paragraph before on pages 3 and 4 under the title “The association between the vacA, cagA, and iceA2 genotypes with the clinical outcome”. The authors mention that iceA2 was not correlated with duodenitis, which was present in 75% of the samples. Is this affirmation correct? Response: The presence of iceA2 gene alone was only found in 2/9 cases, the other 7 cases were combined genotypes as presented in Table 3.
Responded by Prof. Laila Nimri on 13 Aug 2012 02:28:40 PM
 
 
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