Conflicts-of-interest statement
Reviewers should recognize, acknowledge and disclose any potential conflict of interest that may include (but not be limited) to the following, and inform the editorial office immediately upon discovery of any conflict of interest, stopping if the article review process is underway.
Close personal and/or professional relationship with the author(s); submitted similar or competing manuscripts to BPG or other journals; studied together with the author(s) and/or has former student, resident, fellow, mentor or family relative relationship; and have had in last 5 years collaboration or common grants and/or publications or financial interest with the authors?
Criteria for Article Quality Tracking-Peer-Review
The mission of BPG is to comply with publishing ethics/standards established by the industry and to publish high quality articles. In addition, we strive to make a strict peer-review of each article submitted, and tracking the scientific quality of each is the mission of the editorial board members and/or peer-reviewers.
The following evaluation points are for editorial board members and/or peer-reviewers’ reference only in evaluating an article:
1 Ethics: Does the ethical approval form provided by the author meet the requirements?
2 Methods: Is the experimental method effective? Can it be repeated by fellow researchers (according to adequate textual/citation content presented)?
3 Results: Are the results true and authentic? Is the theory or hypothesis of universal significance validated or partially validated?
4 Figures and tables: Does the author provide perfect tables, line charts and/or graphs? Or, does the author provide figures and tables that are confusing, poorly constructed and/or not well-annotated?
5 Biostatistics: Does the author provide perfect biostatistics data? Or, does the author provide tables and line charts that have mistakes in the data?
6 References: Does the author scientifically and reasonably cite the latest references which are important in this field and related to the scientific problems and research hypotheses addressed in the study? Or, does the author self-cite, omit, mis-cite and/or over-cite references?
7 Language: Does the language in article correctly, clearly and concisely express the information? Or, does the article have multiple grammatical and spelling mistakes?
8 Caveats or drawbacks: What are the caveats or drawbacks for the results?
Comments to Authors
Please make a specific and meaningful evaluation on the objectivity, credibility and scientific quality of the article according to above listed criteria. Please identify which issues have been resolved by the author and which not, what problems still exist, and which method the author intends to adopt to solve the problem in the next step, etc. Your high quality conclusion will also be advantageous for the author’s efforts in conducting future research, will contribute to raising the reader’s interest, and will promote discipline development. Please fill in your detailed comments to authors at below:
The article addresses a clinically relevant question regarding early aspirin discontinuation and ticagrelor monotherapy following percutaneous coronary intervention. The authors have synthesized evidence from four randomized clinical trials, and the findings are potentially useful for understanding the balance between bleeding reduction and ischemic protection.
The inclusion of a study-characteristics table, an expanded discussion of clinical heterogeneity, and a supplementary search strategy represents an improvement over the earlier manuscript, as reflected in the published responses to peer reviewers.
Nevertheless, several important methodological and reporting concerns remain unresolved and affect confidence in the quantitative synthesis.
1. Major inconsistencies in the forest plots
Figure 1 contains significant discrepancies. Panel C, labeled as three-point major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), reproduces the study-level estimates and pooled effect presented in Panel B for major bleeding. Similarly, Panel D, labeled as net adverse clinical events (NACE), reproduces the estimates and statistical results from Panel A for clinically relevant bleeding. These duplicated results are inconsistent with the outcome-specific findings described in the text. The authors should verify the original extraction sheets and statistical outputs, provide corrected forest plots, and determine whether the reported pooled estimates and conclusions require revision.
2. Incorrect total sample size
The abstract and Core Tip state that the meta-analysis included more than 20,000 patients. However, the randomized sample sizes of TWILIGHT (7,119), TICO (3,056), T-PASS (2,850), and ULTIMATE-DAPT (3,400) yield a total of 16,425 participants. This discrepancy should be corrected and reconciled with the underlying study-selection and extraction records.
3. Incomplete risk-of-bias assessment
A transparent assessment of methodological quality is essential for a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. The published article and supplementary material do not provide study-level risk-of-bias judgments. This issue had already been identified during peer review, but the available response does not demonstrate that a complete assessment was performed. The authors should provide outcome-specific RoB 2 evaluations and explain how these judgments affect confidence in the pooled findings.
4. Insufficient statistical reproducibility
The statistical methods require more comprehensive documentation, particularly the derivation of hazard ratios from reported event counts, the random-effects estimation procedure, and the handling of differences in outcome definitions. This concern is particularly relevant to the T-PASS trial and the pooling of clinically heterogeneous NACE outcomes. An outcome-level data extraction table and reproducible analysis outputs would substantially strengthen transparency.
5. Incomplete systematic-review reporting
Although the authors describe independent study screening, the published article does not present a complete PRISMA flow diagram or sufficient numerical details of study identification and exclusion. The review also follows PRISMA 2009 rather than the updated PRISMA 2020 reporting framework. Furthermore, the timing and prospective status of the PROSPERO registration should be clarified, considering the reported registration identifier and the chronology of manuscript submission.
6. Reference accuracy and interpretation
Several in-text references do not correspond to the studies discussed. These should be systematically verified. In addition, the absence of a statistically significant difference in ischemic events should not be interpreted as definitive evidence of equivalence or non-inferiority without appropriate statistical justification. The conclusions should distinguish established bleeding benefits from the remaining uncertainty regarding ischemic safety in specific patient populations.
Overall assessment
The manuscript addresses an important clinical question and incorporates evidence from relevant randomized trials. However, unresolved inconsistencies in the forest plots, incorrect reporting of the total sample size, incomplete risk-of-bias assessment, and insufficient statistical transparency substantially limit confidence in the published synthesis.
I recommend that the authors provide the original outcome-level data and analytical outputs for independent verification. The editorial office should assess whether a formal post-publication correction is required and whether the reported conclusions remain supported after verification.
Author Awards
1 Award aims: To praise the authors who have made outstanding contributions by publishing original and innovative Basic study, Clinical study, Case report and/or Review in any of the 43 open-access publications of BPG. Their publications represent meaningful contributions towards promoting the ability of readers to get the latest research results and towards the development of medical science. To thank such authors for their contributions, we have set up the ‘Baishideng Distinguished Award’ to track the quality of articles and award the corresponding authors.
2 Selection methods: Editorial board members will track the quality of the published articles in each issue, so that they can recognize excellent articles and categorize them for recommendation. Then, the annual Baishideng Distinguished Award winners will be selected according to the recommendation categories and the academic influence of the articles. The indexes for academic influence of the articles involves the number of citations, clicks and downloads the paper received.
3 Number of awards: Among articles published in the 43 journals of BPG, 12 total articles (3 Reviews, 3 Basic studies, 3 Clinical studies and 3 Case reports) will be recognized and their authors awarded.
4 Award amounts: The first prize will be 5000 USD. The second prize will be 3000 USD. The third prize will be 2000 USD. In addition, each winner will be presented an official certificate for their Baishideng Distinguished Award.
5 List of winners: The list of Baishideng Distinguished Award winners will be announced on the official BPG website.
Editorial board members and/or peer-reviewers should categorize articles according to the following recommendation categories, with consideration to results of the Track Article Quality assessment to identify excellent articles: