- Nearly half of the citations to retracted articles in the ophthalmology literature occurred after retraction.
- The citations pose a risk of continued spread of false or misleading information after withdrawal.
- Suggested solutions include watermarking of retracted articles, clear labeling on PubMed and other databases, and potentially the use of artificial intelligence-assisted reference checking.
The authors of the retrospective review concluded that a large number of retracted journal articles in ophthalmology continued to be cited in the literature even after retraction, posing a risk of continued dissemination of “false or misleading findings”.
Overall, 80% of the 356 retracted articles had at least one post-retraction citation, and post-retraction citations accounted for nearly half of all citations to articles. Danny Mamo, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues report that the numbers show that post-retraction citations occur disproportionately in ophthalmology compared to other medical specialties. JAMA Ophthalmology.
“For example, the cardiology literature shows approximately 19% citations after retraction, while ophthalmology showed a proportion of 47.9% in this study,” the authors said. “Such disparities may reflect inconsistently marked retraction or limited awareness within the field. Ophthalmology includes many smaller subspecialty fields and journals, where retraction notices may be less visible.”
“Efforts must be made to prevent continued citation of retracted works to preserve the integrity of ophthalmic research,” he said.
Potential actions to prevent citations after retraction include watermarking retracted documents, clear labeling on PubMed and other databases, and use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted reference checking, although AI assistance may have its own limitations, such as hallucinations, the authors concluded.
Ivan Oransky, MD, co-founder of Ophthalmology, said these findings appear to be consistent with other studies of post-retraction citations in the ophthalmology literature. return clockA database for reporting and tracking retracted articles in the scientific literature. At least three studies have been published on this topic in the last 5 years.
One analysis of return clock database 121 recalls in ophthalmology were identified from 1983 to 2021. Focusing primarily on the characteristics of the retracted articles, the authors noted that in many cases the reason for retraction made no mention of fraudulent behavior, “highlighting that not all types of retraction are due to scientific misdeeds.”
It was identified by a study from the year 1966 to 2023 151 retracted ophthalmology articles. The investigators found that retractions increased significantly after 2020, but the frequency of citations following retractions decreased significantly over time (P<0.001).
a review of Ophthalmology literature from 1994 to 2019 83 returns were identified that could be analyzed for details related to the arbitration. Retractions occurred more frequently after 2010, and the median of retracted articles was two citations.
Oransky was surprised to find that the current article made no mention of previous studies.
“It’s a fair question,” he said. Medpage Today. “To be honest, I would probably blame the peer reviewers and the editor (for the oversight). Also, their conclusions are a little bit wrong. If they had looked at the previous literature, not just retraction in ophthalmology, but citation behavior after retraction in the biomedical literature, they would have seen that the citation rate they found after retraction is actually lower than what it is in the vast majority of the literature. Well over 90% of the citations retracted do not mention that the documents “(The papers) have been taken back.”
Oransky further stated that, regarding possible solutions to the post-retraction citation problem, suggestions from most authors have been proposed for at least the last 10 years.
“A better solution are context managers, like closing note, zoteroThings like that,” he said.
Information on returns is included in large databases that are freely available to the research community, such as crossref. Notices about returns are marked and sent to customers of services like Endnote and Zotero.
Mamo and colleagues reported findings from a query of the CrossRef database seeking retrieved articles in ophthalmology from 1980 to 2024. The search and subsequent review of articles identified 356 retrievals, of which 86% were indexed in PubMed and 2.5% were open access.
The articles were cited 5,850 times, and 2,798 citations (47.8%) came after retraction. The average number of citations per retracted article was six, and the average number of citations after retraction was three. The median time to withdrawal was 18 months (range 10 to 37), and 190 (53.4%) withdrawals occurred from 2019 to 2024.
Retinal and vitreous articles accounted for 174 (49%) of the retractions, followed by anterior segment (86, 24%), and oncology or pathology (59, 17%). Basic science accounted for 46.6% of repatriations and clinical trials for 13.2%. The 356 retracted articles had a total of 1,666 co-authors, of whom 232 (13.9%) were co-authors of more than one retracted article.
The most common reasons for withdrawal were methodology (24.0%), publication issues (24.0%), fraud/data manipulation (21.0%), plagiarism (12.6%), and get paper (6.6%).
