Retracted publications and their citation in dental literature: A systematic review

Abstract

Objectives The present systematic review aimed to perform an in‐depth analysis of the different features of retracted publications in the dental field. Material and methods This review has been recorded in the PROSPERO database (CRD42017075634). Two independent reviewers performed an electronic search (Pubmed, Retraction Watch) for retracted articles in dental literature up to December 31, 2018. Results 180 retracted papers were identified, the first published in 2001. Retractions increased by 47% in the last four‐year period (2014–2018), when compared with 2009–2013 (94 and 64 retracted publications, respectively). Author misconduct was the most common reason for retraction (65.0%), followed by honest scientific errors (12.2%) and publisher‐related issues (10.6%). The majority of retracted research was conducted in Asia (55.6%), with 49 papers written in India (27.2%). 552 researchers (89%) are listed as authors in only one retracted article, while 10 researchers (1.6%) are present in five or more retracted publications. Retracted articles were cited 530 times after retraction: the great majority of these citations (89.6%) did not consider the existence of the retraction notice and treated data from retracted articles as reliable. Conclusions Retractions in dental literature have constantly increased in recent years, with the majority of them due to misconduct and fraud. The publication of unreliable research has many negative consequences. Studies derived from such material are designed on potentially incorrect bases, waste funds and resources, and most importantly, increase risk of incorrect treatment for patients. Citation of retracted papers represents a major issue for the scientific community.

An Overview of Retraction Status and Reasons of Non-Cochrane Systematic Reviews in Medicine

“…Tumor Biology and Molecular Biology Reports retracted the largest number of studies; these results were similar to those identi ed in other studies [5,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] . SRs involving research misconduct (especially authorship issues and fraudulent peerreview) took longer to retract than research with honest errors, which was also observed in previous studies [23][24][25][31][32][33][34] .…”

COVID-19 transmission risk and protective protocols in dentistry: a systematic review

“…Due to the rapid development of the COVID-19 pandemic and the short publication timeframe, some published articles have subsequently been retracted or rejected and replaced with newer information. The publication of unreliable papers has several negative consequences that can increase the chance of incorrect treatment for patients [30]. In this study, an attempt was made to use more valid and practical articles and protocols.…”

Retracted articles in the biomedical literature from Indian authors

“…According to Bozzo et al ( 2017 ), 61% of cancer publications were retracted due to academic misconduct: plagiarism, duplicate publication, and fraud. Rapani et al ( 2020 ) found that almost 28% of retracted dental literature was contributed by Indian authors. Faggion Jr et al ( 2018 ) found that nearly 57% of retracted dental literature was published between 2012 and 2016.…”

“…A troubling trend is the rising number of retracted scientific papers (Fang and Casadevall 2011 ). Very recently, Rapani et al ( 2020 ) found that India was the top country in the retracted publications in the dental literature with about 28% and India was one among the top five countries in the retractions (Bhatt 2020 ; Tang et al 2020 ). These are the motivation behind this study.…”