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Cited by 85Academic integrity and plagiarismAcademic Publishing and Open Accessscientometrics and bibliometrics research

Retractions in cancer research: a systematic survey

Open access
Bozzo, Anthony, Bali, Kamal, Evaniew, Nathan, Ghert, Michelle·2017·Research Integrity and Peer Review
DOI 10.1186/s41073-017-0031-1PMC PMC5803635
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Abstract

BACKGROUND: The 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. METHODS: We 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 Accessibility of the retracted article was defined as intact, removed, or available but with a watermark over each page. Descriptive data was collected on each retracted article including number of citations, journal name and impact factor, study design, and time between publication and retraction.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. RESULTS: Following 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 On average, a retracted article was cited 45 times (median 18, IQR 6-51), with a range of 0-742.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. CONCLUSIONS: Retractions 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.

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  • Between 22% and 54% of retractions are due to methodological issues or concerns regarding data.

    “between 22% and 54% of retractions are due to methodological issues or concerns regarding data, 8-12”

    From Evaluating the Accuracy of scite, a Smart Citation Index (2023) · cites this paper as [11]

    The Results (Reasons for retraction; no page given) report that 24.2% of cancer-research retractions were attributed to author error. The Methods (Data extraction; no page given) include data errors and incorrect cell lines in that category, and data or image manipulation among types of fraud. The paper does not report a 22%–54% range for methodological or data-related concerns, and its figures concern cancer research rather than retractions generally. (LLM, conf=0.83)

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Cites

3 retracted

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [14]Higgins JP, Green, S. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. Vol. 5. 2008: Wiley Online Library.
  2. [31](COPE), C.o.P.E., Code of conduct and best practice guidelines for journal editors. publicationethics.org, 2011: p. 1-12.

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Authors
Bozzo, A., Bali, K., Evaniew, N., & Ghert, M.
Affiliations
  • Hamilton General Hospital (CA)
  • McMaster University (CA)
  • Juravinski Cancer Centre (CA)
Corresponding author
Bozzo, Anthony
ORCID
Venue
Research Integrity and Peer Review
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2017-05-12
Volume
2
Issue
1
Pages
5-5
ISSN
2058-8615 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s41073-017-0031-1
PMC
PMC5803635
OpenAlex
W2613383989
Cited by
83
References
39
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 1
Type
retraction
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Research Integrity and Peer Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
Keywords
retracted article, cancer research, retraction reasons, plagiarism, duplicate publication, research misconduct, fraud, journal impact factor, citation counts, retraction policy, research integrity

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