Retractions in cancer research: a systematic survey

BackgroundThe annual number of retracted publications in the scientific literature is rapidly increasing. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency and reason for retraction of cancer publications and to determine how journals in the cancer field handle retracted articles.MethodsWe searched three online databases (MEDLINE, Embase, The Cochrane Library) from database inception until 2015 for retracted journal publications related to cancer research. For each article, the reason for retraction was categorized as plagiarism, duplicate publication, fraud, error, authorship issues, or ethical issues. Accessibility of the retracted article was defined as intact, removed, or available but with a watermark over each page. Descriptive data was collected on each retracted article including number of citations, journal name and impact factor, study design, and time between publication and retraction. The publications were screened in duplicated and two reviewers extracted and categorized data.ResultsFollowing database search and article screening, we identified 571 retracted cancer publications. The majority (76.4%) of cancer retractions were issued in the most recent decade, with 16.6 and 6.7% of the retractions in the prior two decades respectively. Retractions were issued by journals with impact factors ranging from 0 (discontinued) to 55.8. The average impact factor was 5.4 (median 3.54, IQR 1.8–5.5). On average, a retracted article was cited 45 times (median 18, IQR 6–51), with a range of 0–742. Reasons for retraction include plagiarism (14.4%), fraud (28.4%), duplicate publication (18.2%), error (24.2%), authorship issues (3.9%), and ethical issues (2.1%). The reason for retraction was not stated in 9.8% of cases. Twenty-nine percent of retracted articles remain available online in their original form.ConclusionsRetractions in cancer research are increasing in frequency at a similar rate to all biomedical research retractions. Cancer retractions are largely due to academic misconduct. Consequences to cancer patients, the public at large, and the research community can be substantial and should be addressed with future research. Despite the implications of this important issue, some cancer journals currently fall short of the current guidelines for clearly stating the reason for retraction and identifying the publication as retracted.

[1]  R VanNoorden.  THE TROUBLE WITH RETRACTIONS , 2011 .

[2]  H. Yarandi,et al.  Empirical developments in retraction , 2008, Journal of Medical Ethics.

[3]  Elizabeth Wager,et al.  Fate of Articles That Warranted Retraction Due to Ethical Concerns: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study , 2014, PloS one.

[4]  A. Casadevall,et al.  Retracted Science and the Retraction Index , 2011, Infection and Immunity.

[5]  Arturo Casadevall,et al.  Financial costs and personal consequences of research misconduct resulting in retracted publications , 2014, eLife.

[6]  K. Amos.  The ethics of scholarly publishing: exploring differences in plagiarism and duplicate publication across nations. , 2014, Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA.

[7]  M. C. Atlas,et al.  Retraction policies of high-impact biomedical journals. , 2004, Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA.

[8]  E. Dorsey,et al.  The anatomy of medical research: US and international comparisons. , 2015, JAMA.

[9]  Adam Marcus,et al.  What Studies of Retractions Tell Us , 2014 .

[10]  Arturo Casadevall,et al.  Correction: Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased? , 2013, PLoS ONE.

[11]  G. Guyatt,et al.  Epidemiology and reporting of randomized trials employing re-randomization of patient groups: a systematic survey. , 2007, Contemporary clinical trials.

[12]  D. Fanelli.  Why Growing Retractions Are (Mostly) a Good Sign , 2013, PLoS medicine.

[13]  J. Sim,et al.  The kappa statistic in reliability studies: use, interpretation, and sample size requirements. , 2005, Physical therapy.

[14]  Laure Huot,et al.  Visibility of retractions: a cross-sectional one-year study , 2013, BMC Research Notes.

[15]  V. Cottin.  Clinical case: Combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema with pulmonary hypertension – clinical management , 2013, BMC Research Notes.

[16]  Elizabeth Wager,et al.  Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics: a Publisher's Perspective , 2006, International journal of clinical practice. Supplement.

[17]  Zhou Wang,et al.  Epigenetic aberrant methylation of tumor suppressor genes in small cell lung cancer. , 2013, Journal of thoracic disease.

[18]  Richard Van Noorden.  Science publishing: The trouble with retractions , 2011, Nature.

[19]  J. Higgins,et al.  Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions , 2010, International Coaching Psychology Review.

[20]  Raul Rodriguez-Esteban,et al.  Retraction rates are on the rise , 2008, EMBO reports.

[21]  A. Casadevall,et al.  Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[22]  Icmje,et al.  Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: writing and editing for biomedical publication updated October 2004. , 2005, Mymensingh medical journal : MMJ.

[23]  Armen Yuri Gasparyan,et al.  Self-correction in biomedical publications and the scientific impact , 2014, Croatian medical journal.

[24]  Minghua Zhang,et al.  A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted Articles from the Scholarly Literature , 2012, PloS one.

[25]  R. Steen.  Retractions in the scientific literature: do authors deliberately commit research fraud? , 2010, Journal of Medical Ethics.

[26]  J. Burnham.  Scopus database: a review , 2006, Biomedical digital libraries.

[27]  Suzanne K. Linder,et al.  A Survey on Data Reproducibility in Cancer Research Provides Insights into Our Limited Ability to Translate Findings from the Laboratory to the Clinic , 2013, PloS one.

[28]  D. Moher,et al.  Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA Statement , 2009, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[29]  R. Weinberg,et al.  Association of Sos Ras exchange protein with Grb2 is implicated in tyrosine kinase signal transduction and transformation , 1993, Nature.

[30]  R Grant Steen,et al.  Retractions in the medical literature: how many patients are put at risk by flawed research? , 2011, Journal of Medical Ethics.

[31]  A. Coats,et al.  Ethical authorship and publishing. , 2009, International journal of cardiology.

[32]  Donald S Kornfeld,et al.  Perspective: Research Misconduct The Search for a Remedy , 2012, Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

[33]  Arturo Casadevall,et al.  Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased? , 2013, PloS one.

[34]  Comité Internacional de Editores de Revistas Médicas,et al.  Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Writing and editing for biomedical publication , 2010, Journal of pharmacology & pharmacotherapeutics.

[35]  D. Moher,et al.  Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. , 2010, International journal of surgery.

[36]  Arturo Casadevall,et al.  Sources of error in the retracted scientific literature , 2014, FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

[37]  R. Weinberg,et al.  The retinoblastoma protein and cell cycle control , 1995, Cell.

[38]  E. Wager,et al.  Why and how do journals retract articles? An analysis of Medline retractions 1988–2008 , 2011, Journal of Medical Ethics.