Retracted articles in the obstetrics literature: lessons from the past to change the future

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The publication of invalid scientific findings may have profound implications on medical practice. As the incidence of article retractions has increased over the last 2 decades, organizations have formed, including Retraction Watch, to improve the transparency of scientific publishing. At present, the incidence of article retraction in the obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine literature is unclear. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the number of retracted articles within the obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine literature from the PubMed and Retraction Watch databases and examine reasons for retraction. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective review of the PubMed and Retraction Watch databases was performed to identify retracted articles in the obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine literature from indexation through December 31, 2019. The primary outcome was defined as the number of identified articles and reason for retraction. Within PubMed, articles were identified using a medical subheading search for articles categorized as withdrawn or retracted. In addition, the Retraction Watch database was queried and nonobstetrical articles were excluded. The reason for retraction was classified according to the categories listed in Retraction Watch. The subject matter was classified on the basis of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine criteria. Data were collected from retracted articles for author name, country, journal name and impact factor, year of publication and retraction, study type, and response of the publishing journal. Descriptive statistics were performed. RESULTS: Of the 519 obstetrics and gynecology articles in Retraction Watch, 122 (23.5%) were specific to the obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine specialties. In addition, 39 (32.0%) were identified from PubMed, all of which were included in Retraction Watch. There was a median time to retraction of 1 (range, 0e17) year, with a median of 3 citations per article (range, 0e145). In addition, the median journal impact factor was 2.2 (range, 0.1e27.6), with median first and senior author Hirsch index values of 6.0 and 13.5, respectively. Most articles were original research (n¼80; 65.6%), specifically retrospective studies (n¼11; 9.0%), case reports (n¼19; 15.6%), prospective studies (n¼18; 14.8%), randomized controlled trials (n¼11; 9%), basic science (n¼18; 14.8%), and systematic review or meta-analysis (n¼3; 2.5%). Of eligible articles, 32 (26.2%) were published in journals with an impact factor 4, and 21 articles (17.2%) were published in the top 10 leading impact factor obstetrics and gynecology journals. Most retractions were for contentrelated issues (n¼87; 71.3%), including 21.3% (n¼26) for article duplication, 18.9% (n¼23) for plagiarism, and 16.4% (n¼20) for errors in results or methods. Additional reasons included author misconduct (n¼12; 9.8%), nonreproducible results (n¼11; 9.0%), and falsification (n¼8; 6.6%). The most common journal response was an issued statement of retraction (n¼82; 67.2%). Lack of retraction notice and l...

Retracted publications in pharmacy systematic reviews

“…Retracted publications have been documented and analyzed in a variety of biomedical disciplines, including dentistry [10][11][12], radiation and oncology [13][14][15], mental health [16], emergency medicine [17], obstetrics and gynecology [18,19], and surgery [20,21]. Previous studies show that a greater proportion of drug therapy articles are retracted for reasons of misconduct and fraud compared with other biomedical studies [22].…”

Retracted papers are only the tip of the iceberg of untrustworthy evidence

“…There are, however, growing concerns regarding the trustworthiness of the scientific evidence that we all take for granted. 2,3 In this issue, Bennett et al 4 have focused on retracted articles in our field and confirmed that there are no safe havens when it comes to scientific fraud. Untrustworthy data come from all study types and all continents.…”

“…Importantly, scientific fraud is not confined to predatory journals; journals with a high impact factor are not immune either. Bennett et al 4 take comfort in the fact that retractions seem to appear rather quickly with a low median citation rate. However, I would argue that by focusing on retracted articles as an easily visible tip, we may be missing the rest of this iceberg that is threating the very core of EBM.…”

“…Bennett et al 4 highlighted the misalignment of incentives within academic communities, reminding us that publications can have a tremendous impact on academic advancement. When Henry Kissinger famously said that "the reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small," he might have been right about the former, but less so about the latter.…”

Quality criteria for randomized controlled studies: obstetrical journal guidelines

“…4 Recently, 129 retracted manuscripts in obstetrics were identified in RetractionWatch 5 and/or PubMed. 6 Others have questioned the validity of some published RCTs in obstetrics using Monte-Carlo analysis, a modeling technique that simulates a large quantity of random trials from a given dataset and can determine the probability that the reported data in an RCT resulted from groups that were appropriately randomized. 7,8 This problem is not just restricted to ob-gyn journals, but is widespread throughout the medical literature, and may not be simple or straightforward to detect.…”