Finding the Perfect Membrane: Current Knowledge on Barrier Membranes in Regenerative Procedures: A Descriptive Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript provides an overview of barrier membranes used for guided tissue regeneration for the treatment of periodontitis. Undoubtedly, this review is very timely. Up to the best of my knowledge, there is no such review in literature, and the questions addressed and at least partially answered by the Authors are very important and have to be asked.

I strongly recommend this manuscript for the publication and have only a few minor suggestions to improve it and make even more attractive and useful for the Readers.

1. The Authors explicitly describe commercially available membranes but give no examples of the membranes under clinical trials. Are there any registered? I would recommend to make a search and include into the manuscript.
2. As this review will be of interest for the broad audience including the clinicians, biologists, material scientists and other researchers, not all of them might be knowledgeable about the clinical importance of periodontitis treatment. I would recommend to supplement the introduction with some statistical data for the clinics.
3. I would also recommend to provide a bit deeper description of the techniques and approaches used for the membrane fabrication: in the current version of the manuscript, this aspect is described not well and a bit chaotic; for some types of the membranes the approaches for their fabrication are completely ignored. Revising this part and adding at least a few sentences about each valuable method of fabrication would improve the manuscript and provide insights into material science of the membrane, which is of general importance for the understanding of the progress and challenges in this field.

Author Response

The manuscript provides an overview of barrier membranes used for guided tissue regeneration for the treatment of periodontitis. Undoubtedly, this review is very timely. Up to the best of my knowledge, there is no such review in literature, and the questions addressed and at least partially answered by the Authors are very important and have to be asked.

I strongly recommend this manuscript for the publication and have only a few minor suggestions to improve it and make even more attractive and useful for the Readers.

1. The Authors explicitly describe commercially available membranes but give no examples of the membranes under clinical trials. Are there any registered? I would recommend to make a search and include into the manuscript.

Thank you for taking the time to analyse our study and to give us the chance to improve it. Your suggestions have enriched our work and we have modified the paper accordingly.

2. As this review will be of interest for the broad audience including the clinicians, biologists, material scientists and other researchers, not all of them might be knowledgeable about the clinical importance of periodontitis treatment. I would recommend to supplement the introduction with some statistical data for the clinics.

Thank you for your valuable remark. We apologise for this omission on our part. We clarified this issue in the manuscript.

3. I would also recommend to provide a bit deeper description of the techniques and approaches used for the membrane fabrication: in the current version of the manuscript, this aspect is described not well and a bit chaotic; for some types of the membranes the approaches for their fabrication are completely ignored. Revising this part and adding at least a few sentences about each valuable method of fabrication would improve the manuscript and provide insights into material science of the membrane, which is of general importance for the understanding of the progress and challenges in this field.

 Thank you for your valuable suggestion. We have corrected the manuscript, adding the recommended information.

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript gives a comprehensive review of the barrier membranes in regenerative procedures. Various materials and technologies are well-considered. The contents are also properly organized. I suggest the publication when the following comments are considered.

1. Line 512, there is a typo error in the section title. please correct. it.
2. To bring the readers a better view of this field, I suggest adding an introductory cartoon graph to illustrate the relations between various kinds of materials and. technologies. This is an optional suggestion.

Author Response

This manuscript gives a comprehensive review of the barrier membranes in regenerative procedures. Various materials and technologies are well-considered. The contents are also properly organized. I suggest the publication when the following comments are considered.

Thank you for taking the time to analyse our study and to give us the chance to improve it. Your suggestions have enriched our work.

Comments:

1. Line 512, there is a typo error in the section title. Please correct it.

We apologize for this mistake on our behalf. We have corrected the manuscript accordingly.

2. To bring the readers a better view of this field, I suggest adding an introductory cartoon graph to illustrate the relations between various kinds of materials and technologies. This is an optional suggestion.

Thank you for pointing this out. This was an excellent suggestion and we modified the manuscript accordingly.