Identification and Validation of Biglycan as Prognosis and Therapy Markers for Patients with Stomach Adenocarcinoma [Retraction]

Shao C, Cheng C, Shao Q, Chen B. Int J Gen Med. 2021;14:3497–3509.

We, the Editor and Publisher of the journal International Journal of General Medicine have retracted the published article.

Following publication of the article, concerns were raised that the images used in Figure 3 were not taken from stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) tissue or cancer cell lines as described. Specifically,

• The two immunohistochemical images of stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) tissue for Figure 3A are not STAD tissues but are labelled as thyroid cancer tissues on the website (https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000182492-BGN/pathology/thyroid+cancer#img).
• The image used for Figure 3C does not show a cancer cell line, as stated in the figure legend, but an image from a normal human foreskin fibroblast cell line (BJ) as described on the website (https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000182492-BGN/subcellular#img).

The corresponding author did not respond to our queries and was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for how the images came to be incorrectly used or provide satisfactory original data for the study. As verifying the validity of published work is core to the integrity of the scholarly record, the Publisher and Editor requested to retract the article and the corresponding author was notified of this decision.

We have been informed in our decision-making by our editorial policies and COPE guidelines.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.