Vocal Rehabilitation and Quality of Life after Total Laryngectomy: State-of-the-Art and Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well-written and addresses an important topic in the field. The authors have provided valuable insights into the various rehabilitative techniques for patients undergoing total laryngectomy, focusing on the vocal prosthesis, esophageal speech learning, and electrolarynx use.
The introduction provides a comprehensive overview of laryngeal neoplasms and the impact of total laryngectomy on patients' quality of life.

There are few improvements that would enhance the clarity and completeness of the article. 

First, expand the abstract to provide a more detailed study overview and include additional information on the methodology employed, key findings, and research implications. 
A comprehensive abstract will better inform readers about the content and significance of the study.

Secondly, please expand the conclusion section, which needs to be longer. 
The readers will gain a deeper understanding of the study's significance and potential avenues for further investigation.

After this improvements, the article will be ok for the publication

Author Response

dear reviewer thanks for the work done. We've modified as suggested the paper to improve the overall quality. Bests

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I read your work entitled “Vocal rehabilitation and quality of life after total laryngectomy:

state of art” and here I enclose my recommendations to you:

1.     Title: Since the Authors are writing in their Methods Section that this study was probably as systematic review, I suggest them to include this in a way in their title.

2.     The Abstract is too short and does not follow a structure of a systematic review.

3.     There is a need for editing some of English language errors. Please, have a more thorough “look” in the text by a native speaker of English or an editing office.

4.     The “Introduction” is pretty poor and the rational of this study is not clear. It makes reference to all type of communication-voice restoration in laryngectomized patients, but it does develop all of them in the manuscript. If the Authors wanted to focus on the two of the three types, then they should comment this in this section. In some case we see no literature support of the text (e.g., lines 38-44). There is no connection between the paragraphs that are stringed up in the goal of this work. I suggest the Authors to reconstruct all this section.

5.     The “Methods” section is written in a good manner and provides all information that are needed for a systematic review, but again the literature support is not adequate. I suggest the Authors to add more info.

6.     The Authors do not provide all the results. A Prisma flow chart is absent, a table that summarizes all the papers of the systematic review. We also do not see any information and charts of the quality of assessment of the papers that where excluded or included.

7.     The discussion is repeating in a way what the results showed in a more extensive way. Sure, there is a space the Authors to elaborate more.

Thank you.

Moderate editing of English language

Author Response

dear reviewer here the revisions performed described point by point

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Manuscript Number: prosthesis-2412730-peer-review-v1

Title: Vocal rehabilitation and quality of life after total laryngectomy

1. Yes, this subject is useful for publication in Prosthesis.
2. Author analyzed the rehabilitative instruments, with focus on the quality of life occurred after TEP with vocal prothesis, Esophageal speech learning and electrolarynx use. The paper is revision of literature.

3. The design and results are clearly presented. Laryngophone is not the oldest rehabilitation method.

4. Discussion is logical and correct.

5. Conclusion is correct.
6. References are current and pertinent.

This paper should be published after revision: there are no figures, no tables.

Author Response

dear reviewer we performed the revisions required. Thanks for the work done.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This is somewhat old fashioned and does not really contribute to the pool of knowledge but they have reviewed  a significant number of publications, although many of them seem to have the same authors in the overly large number of authors to this paper. I do not like top heavy author lists as patently not all these people wrote this review and the names should be trimmed to those who actually wrote it. The conclusions are superficial and it would have more value if an assessment of the publications concentrated on whether the outcomes, utilisation and value of TEP had changed in the 40 years it has been the voice rehabilitation technique of choice in most western head and neck units. I assume it has been submitted to this journal as it has been rejected by the regular ENT/Head and Neck journals. Actually for a non specialised journal it may have some value as an article of general interest

Some of the sentencing is a bit laboured but not terrible

Author Response

dear reviewer thanks for the work done. Here are the revisions performed described point by point. Bests

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I read your work entitled “Vocal rehabilitation and quality of life after total laryngectomy: state of art” and here I have no more recommendations to you. Thank you for addressing all my comments.