Cardiac Function and Structure before and after Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Elite Athletes Using Biventricular and Left Atrial Strain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors describe the assessment of cardiac function using transthoracic echocardiogram in elite athletes before and after COVID-19 infection and in comparison to a group of healthy controls. I think this manuscript is well written and can be published in this journal in the present form.

Author Response

Comments: The authors describe the assessment of cardiac function using transthoracic echocardiogram in elite athletes before and after COVID-19 infection and in comparison to a group of healthy controls. I think this manuscript is well written and can be published in this journal in the present form.

 

Answer:

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your positive feedback on our manuscript. We truly appreciate your recognition of our work assessing cardiac function in elite athletes before and after COVID-19 infection. Your kind words and recommendation for publication mean a great deal to us, and we are delighted that you found our manuscript well-written and valuable for the field.

Best regards,

Jana Schellenberg.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

his is a well-written manuscript with nicely designed and results clearly presented, well supported by statistical analysis. I read with great interest and I find it easy to follow the contents. A few minor comments for improvements:

1. Tables 3 and 4:  footnote of abbreviations: since these parameters are the same, so no need to repeat them in Table 4. Suggest deleting these abbreviations in table 4 and states that abbreviations are the same as shown in Table 3. 

2. I would suggest adding another 1 or 2 figures showing the echocardiographic findings in this study group, with no significant difference and significant changes (RV FWS and LAS (ct).

Author Response

This is a well-written manuscript with nicely designed and results clearly presented, well supported by statistical analysis. I read with great interest and I find it easy to follow the contents. A few minor comments for improvements:

1. Tables 3 and 4:  footnote of abbreviations: since these parameters are the same, so no need to repeat them in Table 4. Suggest deleting these abbreviations in table 4 and states that abbreviations are the same as shown in Table 3. 
2. I would suggest adding another 1 or 2 figures showing the echocardiographic findings in this study group, with no significant difference and significant changes (RV FWS and LAS (ct).

Response:

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your positive feedback and constructive suggestions. We are pleased that you found our manuscript well-designed and easy to follow.

Regarding your comments:

1. We agree that repeating the abbreviations in Table 4 is unnecessary. We will remove the abbreviations and add a note indicating that they are identical to those provided in Table 3.
2. Regarding your suggestion to add additional figures for echocardiographic findings, we are presenting the significant differences in left and right ventricular strain, as well as LA strain, in Figure 1. Since the other standard echocardiographic parameters are normal and show no significant differences between the groups, we prefer to keep these data in a table format to avoid redundancy. We hope this aligns with your preferences.

Thank you again for your valuable input.

Best regards,

Jana Schellenberg.