Longitudinal Study on the Association between Ambient Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Nasal Symptoms in Adult Japanese
, Akinori Hara 1, Kazuichi Hayakawa 2, Kim-Oanh Pham 1,3, Keita Suzuki 1, Hiromasa Tsujiguchi 1, Hiroshi Matsuzaki 4, Hiroshi Odajima 4, Akinori Takami 5 and Hiroyuki Nakamura 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
The authors should acknowledge that they did not measure the generally more abundant gaseous and semi-volatile 2- and 3-ring PAHs (naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, flourene, anthracene, and phenathrene) that may contribute to respiratory symptoms.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
Interesting paper.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Generally, the title must be improved with the use of clear (or appropriate) words. An "Longitudinal study" is not clear represented in paper.
Also, there is no any hypothesis what mechanism of PAH effect on nasal system or how PAH can injury nasal system
The theoretical basis have to be improved.
Other comments are attached
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors investigated the relationship between exposure to PAHs and nasal symptoms. They conducted a longitudinal study on 53 adult participants with a chronic cough in Ishikawa, Japan prefecture, Japan.
Concerns
1) Ambient air pollution concentrations were very low in April-May 2020 in Ishikawa. The authors report the mean total concentration of 10 PAHs during the study period was less than 1 ng/m3 (+0.26) and concentrations of PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 were similarly low for an urban area. The PAHs were sampled and analyzed with a valid technique; however, the authors should report the lower quantifiable levels (LQL) of the individual PAHs and procedures to assign concentrations in cases below LQL (if any). The low levels of air pollution make it difficult to quantify air pollution health effects.
2) Ishikawa Prefecture is a fairly large region (4,186 km2). PAHs were measured at only one air monitoring location in the region. I suspect the other air pollutants were only measured at a single location, but this is something the authors should clarify in the manuscript. The authors should report the distances (mean and range) from the participants residences to the PAH and PM2.5 measurement locations. They should acknowledge that the “single measurement site” methodology does not account for spatial variation of pollution with the prefecture which could be substantial for primary emitted compounds like these PAHs. If the distances are large for some subjects, they may consider presenting sensitivity analyzes with subjects located more than 20-30 km away from monitors sensorsed.
3) Even though the PAHs were sampled without a size-selective inlet, it would be more informative to plot PM2.5 rather than TSP on Figure 1 (along with PAH) because all available evidence suggests the measured PAH are contained within the 0 to 2.5 um size range due to their origin in combustion.
4) The analyzes do not control for other confounders of nasal symptoms. The study was conducted in spring season when pollens and spores tend to be high, and these could contribute to allergy-caused nasal symptoms. Similarly, the authors do not mention data on acute upper respiratory infections that can cause nasal symptoms. The authors should discuss other contributors to nasal symptoms and either explain why they can be ignored in their analyzes or acknowledge this as a limitation of the study.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Please see attached review.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
- very interesting paper, but please check the instructions for the authors
- missing graphical abstract - A graphical abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing the content, it should represent the topic of the article in an attention-grabbing way. Moreover, it should not be exactly the same as the Figure in the paper or just a simple superposition of several subfigures. Note that the GA must be original and unpublished artwork. Any postage stamps, currency from any country, or trademarked items should not be included in it. The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, TIFF, or SVG. Written text in a GA should be clear and easy to read, using one of the following fonts: Times, Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Ubuntu or Calibri. The minimum required size for the GA is 560 × 1100 pixels (height × width). The size should be of high quality in order to reproduce well.
- keywords - can you please rewrite/change these two keywords "ambient PAHs" and "nasal symptoms" - for better visibility of your paper you shouldn't use words that are already in your title of the paper; use three to ten pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract which are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.
- in 2.1 - your "sampling" period was between 1st April and 31st May - can you explain why particularly these two months were used to observe participants?
- in 2.3 - air pollutants measurement - you mentioned using HPLC, but didn't mention which detector is used for the determination of PAHs - I'm assuming MS (mass detector); also please provide QA/QC data.
- in 2.4 - why did you use and compare lag0 and lag5? I ask because lag5 (of for example 30th April) is also lag4 (of 29th April) and lag3 of 28th April etc. Why didn't you just compare the actual day with the day before? Can you explain it?
- threw all paper (in text, tables, figures etc.) can you please rewrite all species including PM2.5 in a proper way: H2SO4, NO2, SO2, etc?
- also units: µg /m3
- in 3.2: what is the difference between "Cl" and "CL"?
- also if you use β -please use it threw all text, not one-time β and second time B
- also for "p" and "P" in tables and text
- no need to explain the same abbreviations after each table - you mentioned them already in the text before
- please rewrite and expand the conclusions
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Please see attached review
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
