Post retraction citations among manuscripts reporting a radiology-imaging diagnostic method

Abstract

Our study aimed to evaluate the trends of post retraction citations of articles reporting a radiology-imaging diagnostic method and to find if a different pattern exists between manuscripts reporting an ultrasound method and those reporting other radiology diagnostic methods. This study reviewed retractions stored in PubMed on the subject of radiologyimaging diagnosis to identify the motivation, time from publication to retraction, and citations before and after retraction. The PubMed database was searched on June 2017 to retrieve the retracted articles, and the Scopus database was screened to identify the post-retraction citations. The full text was screened to see the type of post-retraction citation (positive/negative) and whether the cited article appears or not as retracted. One hundred and two retractions were identified, representing 3.5% of the retracted articles indexed by PubMed, out of which 54 were included in the analysis. Half of the articles were retracted in the first 24 months after publication, and the number of post retraction citations was higher than the number of citations before retraction in 30 out of 54 cases (US methods: 9/20, other diagnostic methods 21/34, P-value = 0.2312). The plagiarism was the most common reason for retraction (31%), followed by repetitive publication (26%), and errors in data/manuscript (24%). In less than 2% of cases, the retracted articles appear as retracted in the text or reference list, while the negative citation is observed in 4.84% among manuscripts reporting an US diagnostic method and 0.32% among manuscripts reporting a diagnostic method other than US (P-value = 0.0004). No significant differences were observed when post retraction weighted citation index (WCI, no. of citations weighted by citation window) was compared to WCI prior retraction (P-value = 0.5972). In light of the reported results, we enumerated some recommendations that could potentially minimize the referral to retracted studies as valid.

Does retraction after misconduct have an impact on citations? A pre-post study

“…It should be stressed here that these previous studies are not comparable with ours in terms of the types of studies covered. Even so, our results coincide with those of the study undertaken by Bolboaca et al, in which most of the articles analyzed received more citations after than they did before their retraction (7).…”

Evidence-based medicine self-assessment, knowledge, and integration into daily practice: a survey among Romanian physicians and comparison between trainees and specialists

“…It is widely recognized that accurate and valid scientific evidence is value-laden [30], but today's evidence may turn out to be wrong tomorrow. The number of medical articles published in the scientific literature increases yearly and is also associated with the increasing number of retracted manuscripts [31] with misconduct as one of the chief causes of withdrawal, a severe issue to evidence-based practice [32]. Affirmatively most respondents consider the level (A06, Table 2) and strength of evidence (A06, Table 2) when they read scientific articles, but no reflection of knowledge related to the place of an article in the hierarchy of evidence (A04 and A05, Table 2) is observed.…”

Back to basics: Avoiding errors in scientific research and publications

“…Ipak, uticaj namernih i nenamernih publikovanih grešaka može biti veliki čak i kada je rad povučen. Nekoliko istraživanja je pokazalo da su povučeni radovi i dalje citirani čak i nekoliko godina posle povlačenja [2,3]. Takođe, većina tih citata je bila pozitivna (bez navođenja povlačenja citiranog rada) što upućuje na zaključak da autori nisu bili upoznati sa činjenicom da je citirani rad bio povučen [2,3].…”

“…Nekoliko istraživanja je pokazalo da su povučeni radovi i dalje citirani čak i nekoliko godina posle povlačenja [2,3]. Takođe, većina tih citata je bila pozitivna (bez navođenja povlačenja citiranog rada) što upućuje na zaključak da autori nisu bili upoznati sa činjenicom da je citirani rad bio povučen [2,3]. Takav površan pregled litarture, posebno ako se ne pregledaju i ne koriste primarni radovi u kojima su prvi put predstavljeni određeni rezultati ili teorije, može da bude izvor grešaka i nedoslednosti koje dalje mogu da se prenose i šire u naučnoj literaturi, i koje je onda teško iskoreniti.…”