Exp Ther Med 13:[Related article:] 2848–2854, 2017; DOI:
10.3892/etm.2017.4367
Following the publication of this article, an
interested reader drew to our attention that data and figures
(particularly relating to Figs. 1 and 3) bore some striking and
unexpected similarities with figures in the following article that
was published in PLoS One [Weir TL, Manter DK, Sheflin AM, Barnett
BA, Heuberger AL and Ryan EP: Stool microbiome and metabolome
differences between colorectal cancer patients and healthy adults.
PLoS One. 8: e70803, 2013].
After having conducted an internal investigation, the
Editor of Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine agrees that
the similarities among the abovementioned figures and those that
appeared in the PLoS One article were too extensive that they may
have been purely coincidental. The authors were contacted about
this issue and were asked to comment on the apparent similarities,
but they failed to respond to our queries in this regard.
Therefore, on the grounds of a lack of confidence in the presented
data, the Editor of Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine
has decided that the article should be retracted from the
publication. The Editor sincerely apologizes to the authors of the
PLoS article and to the readership for the inconvenience caused. We
also thank the reader for bringing this matter to our
attention.
