Core Synergies Measured with Ultrasound in Subjects with Chronic Non-Specific Low Back Pain and Healthy Subjects: A Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The contents below need to be revised a lot.

 

- Why do you write "CORE" capital letters in "CORE muscle"?

 

Line 22: Abstract should also present what TRA, IO, and EO stand for.

Line 54: Motion Mode should not be expressed as M-Mode.

Line 57: What does DLI stand for?

Line 61: It should be decided whether Transversus abdominis stands for TrA or TRA. And it should be revised uniformly throughout the paper.

Line 62: Is it correct to use the acronym for anterior rectus abdominis (AR), correctus abdominis (IRD) like this? In addition, AR and IRD do not come out afterward, so there is no need to use abbreviations.

Line 64: Lumbar multifidus (LM) -> Line 43 presents an abbreviation, so it should be modified to LM.

Line 304: What is ADIM stand for? Since ADIM is not mentioned later, it does not seem necessary to write it as an abbreviation.

Line 267: What does DLIC stand for?

Author Response

 

Dear reviewer.

Here the revision with the responses in red.

 

Why do you write "CORE" capital letters in "CORE muscle"?

As it is not an abbreviation but a functional concept, we have changed it to lower case.

Line 22: Abstract should also present what TRA, IO, and EO stand for.

Line 22. Reviewed and modified. Thank you

Line 54: Motion Mode should not be expressed as M-Mode.

Line 111. Reviewed and modified. Thank you

Line 57: What does DLI stand for?

Line 117. It is a translation error. It stands for chronic NSLBP. Apologies.

Line 61: It should be decided whether Transversus abdominis stands for TrA or TRA. And it should be revised uniformly throughout the paper.

Line 118. Reviewed and modified as TrA uniformly throughout the paper. Thank you.

Line 62: Is it correct to use the acronym for anterior rectus abdominis (AR), correctus abdominis (IRD) like this? In addition, AR and IRD do not come out afterward, so there is no need to use abbreviations.

Line 118. It is not correct. It is a translation error. The proper form is as follows: ‘An atrophy of the rectus abdominis (RA) with an increased inter-rectus distance’.

Thank you.

Line 64: Lumbar multifidus (LM) -> Line 43 presents an abbreviation, so it should be modified to LM.

Line 119. Reviewed and modified. Thank you

Line 304: What is ADIM stand for? Since ADIM is not mentioned later, it does not seem necessary to write it as an abbreviation.

Line 1030. ADIM is the abbreviation of ‘Abdominal draw in Maneuver’. Reviewed and modified. Thank you.

Line 267: What does DLIC stand for?

Line 992. It is a translation error. It stands for chronic NSLBP. Apologies.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presents a review of publications from 2015 to 2021 in which CORE synergies were measured on ultrasound in subjects with non-specific low back pain.

The paper is confusing and didn't convince me of the importance of such a review. It seems the authors were looking for papers that relate any muscle group to the diaphragm or pelvic floor, but those weren't found. What is the relevance of these?

I suggest to the authors expand the search and consider including in the sources list preprint servers such as arXiv and medRxiv.

Overall, try to avoid using acronyms in the abstract and keep the consistency of them. For example, if you decided to use TRA go with it and don't use TrA or any other, otherwise is confusing to the reader.

If it is really necessary to have acronyms in the abstract, show their meaning, such as CORE, TRA, IO and EO.

Author Response

Dear reviewer.

Here the revision with the responses in red.

This paper presents a review of publications from 2015 to 2021 in which CORE synergies were measured on ultrasound in subjects with non-specific low back pain.

Line 388. The search was conducted from 2005 to 2021. The studies found in this review with the eligibility criteria were published from 2015. 

Line 380. ‘Subjects ≥ 18 years, general population with chronic NSLBP, without pain or both’.

Line 430. ‘Muscle relationships or synergies of two or more muscles that conform the core represented as: muscle thickness patterns (cm, mm, ms or >/</=), onset (ms), muscle activation (% change in thickness (cm)) and symmetry (between the homolateral side with respect to the contralateral side) in percentage’

The paper is confusing and didn't convince me of the importance of such a review. It seems the authors were looking for papers that relate any muscle group to the diaphragm or pelvic floor, but those weren't found. What is the relevance of these?

Thank you very much for your contribution.

After reading your review, we have tried to modify the following:

• (Lines 86-100). We have tried to provide more detailed information about the function of the core including all muscles that conform it.
• (Line 104-108). Further justification for the use of ultrasound has been attempted based on the objective of the review.
• (Line 361-367). The objective and the hypothesis of the systematic review have been better explained.
• (Line 488-699) The results tables have been improved.
• (Line 955-967; 1104-1115). We have provided a better vision in the discussion of the results.

Hopefully these changes will help you to exclude your doubts about the importance and significance of this systematic review.

Best regards

I suggest to the authors expand the search and consider including in the sources list preprint servers such as arXiv and medRxiv.

Thank you very much for your input.

According to the criterion of the authors of the review, the search in preprint databases was not considered since they may contain errors as it is not a definitive article.

Lines 387-389;  392-400. An extensive search was made in different databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, PEDro and WOS) mentioned in the 'Material and methods' section. The bibliographic search was carried out by the documentalist in a very sensitive manner and included all types of studies. It can be found in the supplementary material ‘Appendix A’.

We will keep this in mind for future research.

Overall, try to avoid using acronyms in the abstract and keep the consistency of them. For example, if you decided to use TRA go with it and don't use TrA or any other, otherwise is confusing to the reader. If it is really necessary to have acronyms in the abstract, show their meaning, such as CORE, TRA, IO and EO.

Reviewed and modified as TrA uniformly throughout the paper.

Line 13-26. All acronyms have been removed from the abstract.

Thank you

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, 

it is an interesting topic and a well done article. 

Can you only verify the legend of the tables and figures?, to include all the descriptions. 

Best regards

Author Response

Dear authors, 

it is an interesting topic and a well done article.

Can you only verify the legend of the tables and figures?, to include all the descriptions. 

Best regards

Thank you very much for your report.

All the legends of the tables and figures have been revised.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my concerns, thus I'm recommending its acceptance.

Dear authors, before submitting the final version, do one more review of the English grammar.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your report.

All the English grammar has been reviewed and corrected (Grammatical and vocabulary errors, misspellings, and capitalization errors)

Line 20, 88,89, 92, 98, 113, 132, 362, 383, 391, 397, 3975, 99, 440, 456, 459, 461, 462, 463, 491, 496-707, 719, 722, 963, 969, 993-996, 1001, 1020, 1025, 1032, 1088, 1091, 1095, 1106 and 1108.

It can be verified in the main manuscript with track changes active.