Inappropriate image duplications in rhinology research publications
Open accessAbstract
Key points: Duplicated images in research articles erode integrity and credibility of biomedical science. Forensic software is necessary to detect figures with inappropriately duplicated images. This analysis reveals a significant issue of inappropriate image duplication in our field.
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Integrity signals
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Cites
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The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
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Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Their estimate of potentially fraudulent papers aligns with recent discoveries.
“Secondly, our estimate for potentially fraudulent papers aligns well with recent discoveries.”
From Fraudulent studies are undermining the reliability of systematic reviews: on the prevalence of problematic images in preclinical depression studies (2025) · cites this paper as [45]
The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that approximately 12% of the sampled rhinology articles may contain inappropriate image duplications. The Methods (page unavailable) say the more serious types are more likely to result from misconduct, supporting the reference to potentially fraudulent papers. But the cited paper cannot establish whether the citing authors’ unspecified estimate aligns with its finding. (LLM, conf=0.79)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe few similar investigations have produced similar prevalence estimates for problematic images, though this study's estimate is among the highest.
“There are few investigations that have employed similar approaches; however, the ones we know of 15,[45][46][47][48] have produced similar estimates for the prevalence of reports featuring problematic images (although we appear to have the dubious honor of having produced one of the highest estimate so far).”
From Fraudulent studies are undermining the reliability of systematic reviews: on the prevalence of problematic images in preclinical depression studies (2025) · cites this paper as [45]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
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Cites
Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications
Fang, F. C., Steen, R. G., & Casadevall, A. (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1212247109 · Cited by 1,232 · see citing works
Gopalakrishna, G., ter Riet, G., Vink, G., Stoop, I., Wicherts, J. M., & Bouter, L. M. (2022) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0263023 · Cited by 296 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 5
- National Academies of Sciences E, Medicine. Fostering Integrity in Research. The National Academies Press. 2017.
- Collins FS, Tabak LA. Policy: nIH plans to enhance reproducibil- ity. Nature. 2014;505:612-613.
- Butler D. Researchers have finally created a tool to spot dupli- cated images across thousands of papers. Nature. 2018;555:18.
- Martin C, Blatt M. Manipulation and misconduct in the han- dling of image data. Plant Cell. 2013;25:3147-3148.
- Prager EM, Chambers KE, Plotkin JL, et al. Improving trans- parency and scientific rigor in academic publishing. Brain Behav. 2019;9:e01141.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Berrío, J. P., & Kalliokoski, O. (2025) · FEBS Letters · doi:10.1002/1873-3468.70077 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
- Authors
- Cho, D., Bishop, J., Grayson, J., & Woodworth, B. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Alabama at Birmingham (US)
- Corresponding author
- Cho, Do‐Yeon
- Venue
- International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2023-07-11
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 119-122
- ISSN
- 2042-6976 (ISSN-L)
- 2042-6984
- PMC
- PMC10749980
- OpenAlex
- W4382011119
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 0.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (1 R01 HL133006‐05)
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (R21AT01223‐01)
- Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (002481G221, CHO20A0‐KB)
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (K08AI146220, 1R21AI168894‐01)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Benford’s Law and Fraud Detection
- Keywords
- duplicated images, image duplication, research integrity, research misconduct, forensic software, figure detection, publication ethics
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