The authors wish to retract the article titled “The Phosphatase Inhibitor Menadione (Vitamin K3) Protects Cells from EGFR Inhibition by Erlotinib and Cetuximab,” which was published in the November 1, 2011, issue of Clinical Cancer Research (1).
After an unidentified concerned reader made allegations of image mishandling in several figures, the authors requested that their medical school conduct an investigation as per its established protocol. The investigators concluded that there was enhancement of bands in some of the questioned figures and that the changes were subtle and seen only on special analysis. One of the coauthors, who since has returned to his home country, accepted full responsibility for the changes. He never mentioned the enhancements to any of the authors before manuscript submission. In no case would the conclusions from the experiments have been different if no alterations had been made. Independent repetition of key experiments by another senior investigator showed reproducibility of the major findings. In view of the reproducibility of the original data by a third party, the authors continue to stand by the conclusions of the article. However, because the submission did not meet the standards for manuscript submission to Clinical Cancer Research as described in the Instructions to Authors, the authors voluntarily retract this article. The authors apologize to the readers for the inconvenience that this oversight may have caused.
Roman Perez-Soler
Yiyu Zou
Tianhong Li
Yi-He Ling
RSS Feeds