Development and Utility of an Imaging System for Internal Dosimetry of Astatine-211 in Mice

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript presents a radio-imaging tool  based on ²¹¹At for visualizing tumors in mice. It is a useful study, however seems to still be in a very incipient stage and I am not sure it is the right time for its dissemination by publication in a journal.

Here are several issues I identified, including both minor and more serious ones:

Line 46: cross out either "their" or "of them" as these two terms are redundant with one another

Line 47: SPECT acronym used several times in the manuscript without being defined at the time of its first encounter

Often in the manuscript ²¹¹Po is written in brackets next to ²¹¹At. Why? Are the two isotopes of these two elements equally suited for the same application? If so, where is this coming from?

Line 70: cross out "the"

Figure 1a: It is not clear from the figure caption or text description what is the difference between the two images that make up Figure 1a (not the image called Figure 1b). Explain in the figure caption.

Table 2 title: round bracket does not close after being opened

Line 161: "will satisfy" sounds more like a future commitment from the authors rather than current achievement described and supported by the date in this manuscript. You should choose your phrases more carefully and avoid such speculations.

Line 203: "to merely place" (change word order)

I found the whole Discussion section highly speculative about what more could be done, but has not at this stage. I am not convinced this work is mature enough at this stage to warrant its publication in this journal. Do everything that you know needs to be done to fully validate this instrument and technique, then resubmit your work.

Line 254: "Briefly" -> an adverb is needed here, not an adjective

Materials and Methods: a subsection of chemicals used must be added, listing all other chemicals employed in the various protocols (ascorbic acid, isofluorane, etc.) and their purities and vendors

Mention the statistics software and version used

Conclusion section is completely lacking. Add a brief conclusion summarizing the main findings, the main take-aways, limitations of the work and future prospects.

References: some DOIs are missing in the case of some of the journal articles cited

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I found an excessive use of first person in this manuscript: "we" did that, "our study" etc. You should make more use of impersonal constructs and of the passive voice in the case of verbs.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents a design of an imaging system for internal dosimetry of Astatine-211 in Mice. Overall, this is an interesting case study paper. The following are provided for the authors' consideration.
1. In Section Introduction, it would be good to clarify the need for the design of a new system, such as why the existing systems cannot meet the requirements in terms of sensitivity, spatial resolution, and energy resolution.
2. Figure 3: The axis labels are not clear.
3. Line 153: The paper claims that the performance of the designed imager meets the requirements for in vivo imaging in terms of sensitivity, spatial resolution, and energy resolution. It would be better to provide a table to summarize the requirements and the achieved results.
4. A conclusion section is missing after Section 4.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

NA

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No further comments

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There is still excessive use of first person, in spite of authors' claim of professional English editing. The new Conclusions section is full of first person pronouns and verbs.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revision is fine, there is no further comment on my side.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

NA