Abstract
Background and Objectives
To investigate whether and when the correction is done in Systematic Reviews (SRs) and Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) when included Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) have been retracted.]
Methods
This research and open access paper, which was published in June 2022, discusses a ‘good’ example of what’s wr0ng with the continued citation of retracted papers. Papers can be retracted because of ostensibly serious matters such as fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. Dodgy clinical trials can be a significant concern because they can prompt subsequent researchers to go down blind alleys and perhaps ignore genuinely useful lines of enquiry. They can breed inefficiency. They can also distort clinical practice and put patients in danger. More needs to be done to stop their citation. We have included links to six related items.
Results
We identified 587 articles (525 SRs and 62 CPGs) citing retracted RCTs. Among the 587 articles, 252 (43%) were published after retraction, and 335 (57%) were published before retraction. Among 127 articles published citing already retracted RCTs in their evidence synthesis without caution, none corrected themselves after publication. Of 335 articles published before retraction, 239 included RCTs that were later retracted in their evidence synthesis. Among them, only 5% of SRs (9/196) and 5% of CPGs (2/43) corrected or retracted their results.
Conclusion
Many SRs and CPGs included already or later retracted RCTs without caution. Most of them were never corrected. The scientific community, including publishers and researchers, should make systematic and concerted efforts to remove the impact of retracted RCTs.
Yuki Kataokaa, Y., Bannob, M. Tsujimotob, Y. Ariieb, T., Taitob, S., Suzukib, T., Oideb, S. & Furukawa, T.A. (2022) Retracted randomised controlled trials were cited and not corrected in systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 90-97
Publisher (Open Access): https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(22)00166-4/fulltext
and Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) when included Randomized Controlled Trials
(RCTs) have been retracted.
