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Retracted articles in oncology in the last three decades: frequency, reasons, and themes

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Abstract

The field of oncology is the main field in medicine with a high rate of retraction. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the trends of retracted publications in oncology, evaluating their bibliographic characteristics and the reasons for the retraction of articles. The research was conducted specifically using a scientometric approach and relying on scientific visualization techniques, where Bibliometrix R Package Software was used to analyze the data. The present research results imply that the number of retracted articles in oncology has increased since 1995. Moreover, the results reveal that China, the United States (US), Japan, Iran, and Italy are the countries in which the number of such articles compared to all other countries is the largest. Analysis of topics covered in such articles shows that the majority of retracted articles in oncology have been associated with apoptosis, proliferation, invasion, migration, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and breast cancer, and were found most abundantly in two journals: Tumor Biology and Cancer Research. The principal reasons for retractions were: Investigation by Journal/Publisher, Duplication of Image, Fake Peer Review, Investigation by Company/Institution, and Concerns/Issues About Data. Reviewing the reasons why articles have been retracted is important information for editors and editorial boards of oncology journals, related researchers, and policymakers in this field, which could prevent effectively similar events and their adverse consequences in the future.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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Correspondence to Ali Akbar Saboury.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

See Table 6.

Table 6 Reasons for retraction of 700 articles in oncology in Web of Science from 1995–2021 (Data

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Gholampour, B., Gholampour, S., Noruzi, A. et al. Retracted articles in oncology in the last three decades: frequency, reasons, and themes. Scientometrics 127, 1841–1865 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04305-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04305-w

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