SARS-CoV-2 in Kidney Transplant Recipients: A Systematic Review
, Rashmi Rana 2,*, Devinder Singh Rana 3, Anurag Gupta 3 and Mohinder Pal Sachdeva 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The COVID-19 pandemic has had severe impact on transplantation activities with no exception on patients’ health who received kidney transplant. This is a good article that may provide additional information for relevant readers. For the systematic review, the ideal number of studies in meta-analysis is in the range of 20 to 30 effect sizes, although it may contain many more (>70). In this review, the authors included 33 studies which meet inclusion criteria. I recommend to accept this manuscript after the author address the following issues:
Methodology
Please explain in study design whether the authors rated each publication using GRADE (Guyatt et al., 2008), which is endorsed by the World Health Organization, or not for qualitative evidence.
In this review, the authors collected the article from two sources, PubMed and Web of Science, which is less than other systemic reviews used that also include other sources such as MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, and PsycINFO (PMID: 27013600, PMID: 31720968, etc).
Results and Discussion
It would be better if the authors take this opportunity to create the ideal timeline between vaccination and kidney transplantation. Also, discuss or compare (with table) the outcome between patients receive vaccination pre and post kidney transplantation.
Since the pandemic still ongoing (the presence of virus mutation, more variant of virus to be found), the authors should also mention the limitation of this study.
Writing
They should rephrase other articles sentences e.g. Page 1 line 38, "More than 500,000 people in the United States live with end-stage renal disease (ESRD)" similar to abstract on https://isindexing.com/isi/paper_details.php?id=106042. Page 2 line 95 "Titles and abstracts were independently reviewed by two authors (N.K. and R.R.). After screening, the full text of the articles was reviewed by three authors (N.K., R.R. and A.G.). The two screeners discussed items in which there was a disagreement and if a consensus could not be reached, the third author’s adjudication was sought (M.P.S.)." similar to their own article in MDPI Kumar, N.; Rana, R.; Rana, D.S.; Gupta, A.; Sachdeva, M.P. Donor-Derived Cell-Free DNA to Diagnose Graft Rejection Post-Transplant: Past, Present and Future. Transplantology 2021, 2, 348-361.
Please reorder the list of Table 1 (for example alphabetically or based on time) and describe the unit of the outcome in Table 1.
When a number begins a sentence, that number should always be spelled out, e.g.,Page 1 line 17, Page 8 line 248.
One paragraph should be at least 3 sentences, for example page 7 line 22.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
The COVID-19 pandemic has had severe impact on transplantation activities with no exception on patients’ health who received kidney transplant. This is a good article that may provide additional information for relevant readers. For the systematic review, the ideal number of studies in meta-analysis is in the range of 20 to 30 effect sizes, although it may contain many more (>70). In this review, the authors included 33 studies which meet inclusion criteria. I recommend to accept this manuscript after the author address the following issues:
Methodology
Please explain in study design whether the authors rated each publication using GRADE (Guyatt et al., 2008), which is endorsed by the World Health Organization, or not for qualitative evidence.
Response: Thank you for the suggestions. The present article does not consider the grading system of publications included in the review article are selected based on the relevance to the theme of the article. The criteria for search and selection have been explained in the methodology section of the article.
In this review, the authors collected the article from two sources, PubMed and Web of Science, which is less than other systemic reviews used that also include other sources such as MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, and Psyc INFO (PMID: 27013600, PMID: 31720968, etc).
Response: We have gone through the suggested article PMID: 27013600 and PMID: 31720968. The authors in the article have taken into account several sources but in our study, we have taken two sources along with the relevant references of these articles. Some of the sources were left due to non-access of the database while others are not taken into account.
Results and Discussion
It would be better if the authors take this opportunity to create the ideal timeline between vaccination and kidney transplantation. Also, discuss or compare (with table) the outcome between patients receive vaccination pre and post kidney transplantation.
Response: We looked for the article related to the prognosis of COVID-19 among vaccinated kidney transplant patients. There are very limited number of articles [mostly case reports and letter to editors] present on the outcomes/prognosis of covid-19 in vaccinated kidney transplant patients. We have included the relevant published articles in our manuscript and compared the patients in tabular form as suggested by the reviewer [see table 2 in revised manuscript].
Since the pandemic still ongoing (the presence of virus mutation, more variant of virus to be found), the authors should also mention the limitation of this study.
Response: In our manuscript we have not focussed on the different variants of the virus and considered the overall impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the prognosis of the disease, treatment and outcomes. We have made a separate heading as limitations and incorporated the changes as per the suggestions under the limitation heading.
Writing
They should rephrase other articles sentences e.g. Page 1 line 38, "More than 500,000 people in the United States live with end-stage renal disease (ESRD)" similar to abstract on https://isindexing.com/isi/paper_details.php?id=106042.
Response: The line has been rephrased as suggested.
Page 2 line 95 “Titles and abstracts were independently reviewed by two authors (N.K. and R.R.). After sc“eening, the full text of the articles was reviewed by three authors (N.K., R.R. and A.G.). The two screeners discussed items in which there was a disagreement and if a consensus could not be reached, the third author’s adjudication was sought (M.P.S.).” similar to their own article in MDPI Kumar, N.; Rana, R.; Rana, D.S.; Gupta, A.; Sachdeva, M.P. Donor-Derived Cell-Free DNA to Diagnose Graft Rejection Post-Transplant: Past, Present and Future. Transplantology 2021, 2, 348-361.
Response: The line has been rephrased as per suggestion.
Please reorder the list of Table 1 (for example alphabetically or based on time) and describe the unit of the outcome in Table 1.
Response: We have incorporated the suggestions and rearranged the table alphabetically.
When a number begins a sentence, that number should always be spelled out, e.g., Page 1 line 17, Page 8 line 248.
Response: The sentences have been rephrased as suggested.
One paragraph should be at least 3 sentences, for example page 7 line 22.
Response: The changes have been incorporated as per suggestion.
Reviewer 2 Report
PLEASE SEE THIS MANUSCIPT (The Impact of COVID-19 on Kidney Transplant Recipients in Pre-Vaccination and Delta Strain Era: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/10/19/4533), PUBLISHED ON 30 SEP 2021, 48 ARTICLES ARE INCLUDED IN STUDY , THEN HOW COME THIS MANUSCRIPT HAS 34 STUDIES. PLEASE REVISE EXTENSIVELY
Author Response
Reviewer 2
PLEASE SEE THIS MANUSCIPT (The Impact of COVID-19 on Kidney Transplant Recipients in Pre-Vaccination and Delta Strain Era: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/10/19/4533), PUBLISHED ON 30 SEP 2021, 48 ARTICLES ARE INCLUDED IN STUDY, THEN HOW COME THIS MANUSCRIPT HAS 34 STUDIES. PLEASE REVISE EXTENSIVELY
Response: The suggested article ‘The Impact of COVID-19 on Kidney Transplant Recipients in Pre-Vaccination and Delta Strain Era: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’ have a greater number of articles for multiple reasons, some of them are mentioned below-
- Authors have included study from multiple sources and in our review, we have extracted articles from two sources as mentioned in the methodology section of the manuscript.
- The suggested manuscripts also include pre-print articles which are not included in our manuscript.
- The concept and theme of the suggested article is different from our manuscript, because of this the number of articles is limited in our review article.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
this is inappropriate study and copied with previous paper. As search was done earlier on 24th May with 23 studies but revison same date and studies increased to 33. Completely inappropriate
