Three gynecologic cancer studies retracted for figure duplication, image manipulation

A gynecologic cancer researcher at Oita University in Japan has retracted three papers by his group after the discovery of duplicated figures and manipulated images.

The three papers by Noriyuki Takai and colleagues all appeared in Gynecologic Oncology:

• “Erucylphosphocholine shows a strong anti-growth activity in human endometrial and ovarian cancer cells,” cited five times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge
• “M344 is a novel synthesized histone deacetylase inhibitor that induces growth inhibition, cell cycle arrest, and apoptosis in human endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer cells,” cited 15 times
• “β-Hydroxyisovalerylshikonin has a profound anti-growth activity in human endometrial and ovarian cancer cells,” cited eight times

All of the retractions say the same thing:

This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief and Author.

The corresponding author reused, without permission, figures in this manuscript that had been previously published. In addition the corresponding author identified errors affecting several figure panels in which original data were processed inappropriately by the corresponding author such that the figure panels do not accurately report the original data. As such this constitutes a breach of publishing ethics and the corresponding author apologizes to the scientific community for this oversight and any inconvenience caused.

We asked Gynecologic Oncology editor Beth Karlan for more details. She tells Retraction Watch:

The concerns regarding these papers were brought to our attention by the Assistant Managing Editor for CANCER and CANCER CYTOPATHOLOGY.  The papers and allegations were reviewed, correspondence was sent to the authors and they responded to our queries. Our decision was made to retract these manuscripts.  The authors and the other journals are aware of this action.  There are no other papers in Gynecologic Oncology that will be affected.

Takai has not responded to our request for comment.