Sexual Dysfunctions Related to Drugs Used in the Management of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Due to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia: A Narrative Review on α-Blockers and 5-Alpha Reductase Inhibitors

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I here report my concerns:

Purpose is not declared in the abstract. Authors simply write the paper is a critical review of literature about sexual dysfunction as potential side effects related to drugs used for treatment of BPH and LUTS, but also write most of the published studies are affected by weak methodology and other important limitations.

The title should specify the paper is a review of literature.

Methods should be clear and standardized. Authors examine and review the literature including several keywords, such as sexual dysfunction, drugs, α-blocker, 5-alpha reductase inhibitors, phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors. However, authors do not specify if it is a systematic or a narrative review. In the first case, did authors adopt a standardized method (e.g PRISMA)? Please report number of screened papers and moreover inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of the selected papers on drug-related sexual dysfunction only 21 are RCTs and only 2 of these ones used a specific and validated rating scale to measure sexual function. The strength of the data is further reduced.

Authors declare the necessity of studies that specifically evaluate the sexual dysfunction induced by these drugs with validated tools, but conclusions are extremely generic, and authors do not specify what this manuscript adds to current literature.

Author Response

Reviewers' comments No. 01

Dear reviewer thanks for your suggestions that we considered in this new version.

 

1)        Q: Purpose is not declared in the abstract. Authors simply write the paper is a critical review of literature about sexual dysfunction as potential side effects related to drugs used for treatment of BPH and LUTS, but also write most of the published studies are affected by weak methodology and other important limitations. The title should specify the paper is a review of literature.

In agreement with your suggestions, we performed these changes.

 

2)        Q: Methods should be clear and standardized. Authors examine and review the literature including several keywords, such as sexual dysfunction, drugs, α-blocker, 5-alpha reductase inhibitors, phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors. However, authors do not specify if it is a systematic or a narrative review. In the first case, did authors adopt a standardized method (e.g PRISMA)? Please report number of screened papers and moreover inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of the selected papers on drug-related sexual dysfunction only 21 are RCTs and only 2 of these ones used a specific and validated rating scale to measure sexual function. The strength of the data is further reduced.

This is a narrative review, and this has been well reported in both abstract and manuscript. Moreover, Methods have been also revised

 

3)        Q: Authors declare the necessity of studies that specifically evaluate the sexual dysfunction induced by these drugs with validated tools, but conclusions are extremely generic, and authors do not specify what this manuscript adds to current literature.

Conclusions have been revised

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a globally well written paper based on a robust methodology. The manuscript is well written, results are clear and well reported. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer thanks for your comments.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors considered suggestions of the previous review and in material and method reported different phases of screening.

It would be interested to know the number of screened papers and not only reviewed papers.