In Vivo Evaluation of the Effects of SMILE with Different Amounts of Stromal Ablation on Corneal Biomechanics by Optical Coherence Elastography
, Yanzhi Zhao 3, Yubao Zhang 2, Hongwei Yang 3, Jiulin Shi 2, Hongling Cai 1, Dong Zhang 1, Guofu Huang 3, Xingdao He 2,* and Xiaoshan Wu 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors proposed to analyze the effect of different stromal ablation amounts on the corneal biomechanical properties during small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) using optical coherence elastography (OCE). The OCE system combined with the antisymmetric Lamb wave model was employed to achieve a high-resolution of the corneal Young’s modulus and demonstrated the proposed method can provide useful information on the extent of safe ablation for SMILE procedures. The article is organized and well-structured. Writing is acceptable. The research results are promising and can provide a valuable reference. I don’t have any negative comments. I would suggest accepting this manuscript in the present form.
Author Response
Dear editors and reviewer 1:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “In Vivo Evaluation of the Effects of SMILE with Different Amounts of Stromal Ablation on Corneal Biomechanics by Optical Coherence Elastography” (ID: diagnostics-2081402). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied the comments carefully and have made a correction which we hope meet with approval.
Responses to the reviewers’ comments:
Comments and Suggestions for Authors:
The authors proposed to analyze the effect of different stromal ablation amounts on the corneal biomechanical properties during small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) using optical coherence elastography (OCE). The OCE system combined with the antisymmetric Lamb wave model was employed to achieve a high-resolution of the corneal Young’s modulus and demonstrated the proposed method can provide useful information on the extent of safe ablation for SMILE procedures. The article is organized and well-structured. Writing is acceptable. The research results are promising and can provide a valuable reference. I don’t have any negative comments. I would suggest accepting this manuscript in the present form.
Response: We greatly appreciate your pertinent suggestions concerning our manuscript. We have read the comments carefully and have discussed the insufficiency of the paper and the aspects should be further studied. Accordingly, we have made some changes to the manuscript.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We hope that the revised manuscript is now suitable for publication.
The manuscript has been resubmitted to your journal. We look forward to your positive response.
Sincerely,
Yirui Zhu
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript demonstrates using OCE to evaluate the biomechanical effects of SMILE on the cornea with two post-processing methods: Lamb wave model and shear wave speed mappings. This work is overall comprehensive and solid, and is well-written, however, some issues need to be addressed to improve the quality:
1. The Introduction needs to be further improved, in the accuracy aspect, for example, Zvietcovich's work is not about the resolution, it is more relevant to image contrast as it can distinguish the different corneal layers, the "elastography resolution" is weird . This part needs to include other elastography technology, for example, ultrasound elastography, as it is another widely used technology.
2. Figure 3A, a.u. in the color bar refers to normalization, the range should be 0 to 1 or -1 to 1.
3. Figure 4B, the phase velocity can not be negative, the fitting curve should be checked.
4. Figure 5B, the font seems to be weird in the color bar.
Author Response
Dear editors and reviewer 2:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “In Vivo Evaluation of the Effects of SMILE with Different Amounts of Stromal Ablation on Corneal Biomechanics by Optical Coherence Elastography” (ID: diagnostics-2081402). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied the comments carefully and have made a correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the paper (Track Changes). The detailed responses to the reviewers’ comments are listed below.
Responses to the reviewers’ comments:
Comments and Suggestions for Authors:
This manuscript demonstrates using OCE to evaluate the biomechanical effects of SMILE on the cornea with two post-processing methods: Lamb wave model and shear wave speed mappings. This work is overall comprehensive and solid, and is well-written, however, some issues need to be addressed to improve the quality:
More comments:
- The Introduction needs to be further improved, in the accuracy aspect, for example, Zvietcovich's work is not about the resolution, it is more relevant to image contrast as it can distinguish the different corneal layers, the "elastography resolution" is weird . This part needs to include other elastography technology, for example, ultrasound elastography, as it is another widely used technology.
Response: The ultrasound elastography is widely used to assess the biomechanical properties of the ocular, such as cornea, sclera, and retina, etc. However, the resolution of ultrasound elastography is on the sub-millimeter scale, and there are limitations in quantifying the elasticity of the stratified structure of the human cornea. The added discussion has been added in lines 52-61, page 2 of the manuscript.
- Figure 3A, a.u. in the color bar refers to normalization, the range should be 0 to 1 or -1 to
Response: The normalized range of the data is -1 to 1, we have modified in the manuscript. The discussion has been marked in line 210, page 6 of the manuscript.
- Figure 4B, the phase velocity can not be negative, the fitting curve should be checked.
Response: The dispersion curve of the Lamb wave phase velocity was refitted. The discussion has been marked in line 230, page 6 of the manuscript.
- Figure 5B, the font seems to be weird in the color bar.
Response: We have checked Figure 5B, which obscures the number of lines marked in the article on the right, and now we have calibrated it. The discussion has been marked in line 244, page 7 of the manuscript.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We hope that the revised manuscript is now suitable for publication.
The manuscript has been resubmitted to your journal. We look forward to your positive response.
Sincerely,
Yirui Zhu
