Reality of Misconduct in Iranian Orthopedic Publications

I n a newly published article in Science Journal 2018, the situation of Iran in misconduct and retracted articles was the worst and the rate of retracted papers was higher than that in other countries (1). This resulted in more attention toward Iranian published papers. There was a low rate of retraction in the medical literature; however, there has been a recent increase in retractions so far (2). Fake research papers and scientific misconduct are misleading the researchers; in addition, they can impose a huge cost on the academic centers and health systems (2). Finally, invalid published research may give rise to incorrect treatment guidelines that may harm the patients. Moreover, the number of published scientific articles is increasing due to the developments of societies and advancements in technology (2). Accordingly, research-involved authorities decided to revise and establish stricter policies for ethics and publication condition. Proper workshops are held for authors and researchers about the ethics of publication in Iranian academic centers (3). Recently, the retraction watch database website (http://retractiondatabase.org/ RetractionSearch.aspx) facilitates the search and review of retracted articles with more details. For this reason, conditions are provided for orthopedic specialists to review the status oforthopedic studies. In total, 10 Iranian orthopedic studies were found retracted based on our search in the retraction watch database. Regarding this database, the numbers of all the papers which identified retracted were 569 and 54 in Iran and other countries, respectively. The published orthopedic articles from Iran included 18.5% of the total orthopedic papers worldwide which include 1.7% of the Iranian retracted studies. The low rate of retractions in orthopedics is a great pleasure but unfortunately, the most important reasons behind retraction were fake peer-reviews, plagiarism, and duplicate publications.