Pain Experienced during Various Dental Procedures: Clinical Trial Comparing the Use of Traditional Syringes with the Controlled-Flow Delivery Dentapen® Technique
and Javier Flores-Fraile 1,3,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
First sentence of the abstract has too many commas and should be restructured.
Introduction is awkwardly structured and sentences do not flow. A native English speaker should be consulted.
Missing information about sampling. How did they obtain the patients in the study? In what kind of clinic did the study take place?
Statistical calculation of sample size?
Lines 92-93: “After 3 minutes, the infiltration was 92 carried out with parallel needles at the central dental points in the vestibular, lingual and palatine areas with 93 1.8 ml of lidocaine at 2% and 1: 80000:
- Parallel needles? Central dental points??
- Proper terminology in English should be used
At material and method, section 2.1 and 2.2 the working protocol is repeated. It can be reduced to a single paragraph, taking into account that the steps are identical.
The material and methods section can be restructured better to avoid repetitions
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments and appreciations. We have made a series of changes based on the following clarifications that have been made to us:
First sentence of the abstract has too many commas and should be restructured.
Introduction is awkwardly structured and sentences do not flow. A native English speaker should be consulted.
R:Thanks for your appreciation, the introduction has been restructured, commas removed, and a new translation has been made.
Missing information about sampling. How did they obtain the patients in the study? In what kind of clinic did the study take place?
R:All those patients who required some type of dental treatment with ages between 18-90 years were selected, of which 91 were women (51.1%) and the remaining 87 men (48.9%). The study was carried out at the Dental Clinic of the University of Salamanca.
Statistical calculation of sample size?
R:Treatment for each patient was assigned by a randomization list automatically generated prior to the start of the study in which the treatment material is determined. In the case of bilateral treatments, treatment was assigned to one side or the other, according to a supplementary randomization list. The patient randomization was performed in order to avoid sex bias, thus the final numbers of men and women in each group were not significantly different.
Lines 92-93: “After 3 minutes, the infiltration was 92 carried out with parallel needles at the central dental points in the vestibular, lingual and palatine areas with 93 1.8 ml of lidocaine at 2% and 1: 80000:
- Parallel needles? Central dental points??
R:These aspects have been rectified in the manuscript.
- Proper terminology in English should be used
R:The English terminology has been updated and improved.
At material and method, section 2.1 and 2.2 the working protocol is repeated. It can be reduced to a single paragraph, taking into account that the steps are identical.
The material and methods section can be restructured better to avoid repetitions
R:The working protocol has been reduced to a single paragraph. The material and method section has been restructured in the manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
General comment: The authors addressed an interesting topic! But, being a particular and useful technique in the dental office, the authors needed to better describe their work and not to be confused. Starting with the title, it is not the appropriate one and was not observed when reading as a message. Each of the sections needs a new reformulation and organization; statistical analysis is very confusing. Figure 1 is missing. While reading you can find several repeated sentences/phrases. As a manuscript it is very poor and described not with a scientific quality, where English is with many errors.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments and appreciations. We have made a series of changes based on the following clarifications that have been made to us:
General comment: The authors addressed an interesting topic! But, being a particular and useful technique in the dental office, the authors needed to better describe their work and not to be confused.
Starting with the title, it is not the appropriate one and was not observed when reading as a message.
R:The title has been modified and improved.
Each of the sections needs a new reformulation and organization; statistical analysis is very confusing.
R:The work has been reformulated and restructured according to their appreciations. Regarding the statistical analysis, more information has been incorporated:
For the statistical analysis, the averages of the pain suffered within the VAS scale (from 0 without pain to 10 excruciating pain) were evaluated according to the syringe used, treatment and area; In addition, it was evaluated if there were differences by gender or if there was an increase in blood pressure, saturation or heart rate after anesthesia with both syringes. For this, the results are expressed as mean and standard deviation (X Ì… ± SD), the t-test is used, a deductive statistical tool to evaluate the differences between the means of two groups by contrasting hypotheses, in this way, it is possible To determine from the data sample if the differences found can be generalized to the population and to verify with a high level of confidence if the Dentapen® syringe reduces the pain of the conventional syringe. Similarly, analysis of variance is used to test the hypothesis that the means of more than two groups are equal. All calculations and representations were processed with SPSS 25.0 software.
In addition, in the results section we have explained the level of significance of the data collected in the tables and figures.
Figure 1 is missing.
R:Figures have been incorporated and renamed.
While reading you can find several repeated sentences/phrases.
R:Repetitions have been detected, and have been removed from the manuscript.
As a manuscript it is very poor and described not with a scientific quality, where English is with many errors.
R:The work has been reformulated, the technique explained better and the English improved with a new translation.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors respected almost all the comments made to improve their work! Again, several errors in English are found when reading. Please check the long sentences and their meanings, it's still confusing!
