The Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) has retracted a November 2011 editorial by a group of French cancer researchers, including David Khayat, the former head of that country’s National Cancer Institute, over what appears to be fairly extensive plagiarism.
Here’s the notice for the article, “Lymphocyte Infiltration in Breast Cancer: A Key Prognostic Factor That Should Not Be Ignored:”
It has been brought to our attention that the editorial by Roger Mouawad, PhD, Jean-Philippe Spano, MD, PhD, and David Khayat, MD, PhD, entitled “Lymphocyte Infiltration in Breast Cancer: A Key Prognostic Factor That Should Not Be Ignored” (J Clin Oncol 29:1935-1936, 2011), contained previously published content from the following journals:
Schmidt M, Böhm D, von Törne C: The humoral immune system has a key prognostic impact in node-negative breast cancer. Cancer Res 68:5405-5413, 2008
Sander M, Slaga T, Harris C: Mechanisms of toxicity, carcinogenesis, cancer prevention and cancer therapy 2009. Mol Carcinogen 49:410-428, 2010
Hiraoka N: Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and hepatocellular carcinoma: Molecular biology. Int J Clin Oncol 16:544-551, 2010
Talmadg, J, Donkor M, Scholar E: Inflammatory cell infiltration of tumors: Jekyll or Hyde. Cancer Metast Rev 26:373-400, 2007
Denkert C, Loibl S, Noske A, et al: Tumor-associated lymphocytes as an independent predictor of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 28:105-113, 2010
Mlecnik B, Bindea G, Pagès F, et al: Tumor immunosurveillance in human cancer. Cancer Metast Rev 30:5-12, 2011
Accordingly, we are formally retracting this 2011 Journal of Clinical Oncology publication.
What we don’t know from all this is whether the authors lifted text, data or both from the previously published work, which includes another paper in the JCO. What we do know is that, according to their disclosures, they all accepted equal responsibility for the writing and final approval of the manuscript.
Meanwhile, not only is Khayat a titan in the European oncology community — he’s credited with having convinced his home government to declare “war” on cancer — but he seems to be a favorite in the United States, too. The American Society of Clinical Oncology, which publishes the JCO, named him its “Distinguished Achievement Award” for 2011. He’s also president-elect (or perhaps president now, we’re not sure of the timing) of the group’s International Affairs Committee.
We asked ASCO for a comment:
…the content that was in the retracted article was related to text only, there were not associated charts or graphs. If you map the article against the six cited sources listed in the retraction you can see the overlap.
JCO was made aware of the case by email, and has since instituted new measures to stop plagiarism:
…the journal followed policy to evaluate the original published commentary. Since the time of the originally published commentary, the Journal has begun using a new software program to detect duplication of content prior to publication to avoid instances such as this.
Thomas Slaga, whose name appears on the second article listed in the retraction notice, said that paper was the summary of a cancer conference at Aspen and contained information about a wide range of research. Slaga, president of the American Cancer Research Center & Foundation, said he had not been contacted by the JCO about the retraction and was hearing about it for the first time.
We hope to reach one or more of the authors to hear their side of this story.
Update, 12:15 p.m. Eastern, 1/6/12: Khayat and co-author Jean-Philippe Spano sent us the response below. (We are reproducing it verbatim; the second-to-last paragraph appears to be a rough translation from French, eg “plagiat” is “plagiarism” in English.)
We do regret the offence we may have made because of this matter.
In fact, this is not an original paper with original data but only a “Commentary” paper. Altogether, it concerns about 10 lines over a 2 pages Commentary that belonged to authors who have all been cited in the references section of the commentary.
Unfortunately, our PhD, first author, did not quote the reference number, nor cited that these few sentences were coming from these papers by using appropriate quote marks.
We did not have any undue claim of my kind, or discovery or new data/information.
This few lines of literature more than science that constitutes the plagiat, by any means out of specific software program, could not be found out by us when we reviewed before sending it for publication, this commentary.
We are deeply sorry about that.
Yup. I Googled this sentence from the Mouawad paper: “Several studies have shown that the presence of a lymphocytic infiltrate in cancer tissue is associated with improved outcome and that the immune system participates in the control and elimination of tumor cells.” It comes right up. Copied verbatim from a 2010 paper by Denkert et al., which the Mouawad paper later cites in connection with something else, but not as the source of that sentence. The Mouawad paper does seem to be a sort of mini-review paper, no claim to having discovered any new results. But if the authors didn’t want to waste time and effort on original writing, they should have used more quote marks.
I don’t have any benefit nor delight in defending the “plagiarists”, but if that were the ONLY wrongdoing that led to retraction, I’d stand flabbergasted.
This looks a very benign borrowing. Well, copypaste rather than borrowing. But there aren’t so many ways to describe such a piece of knowledge status.
Imagine retracting a Guide Michelin chapter because the sentence “Charliechaplinville airport has 2 terminals. You can get there using the Stan Laurell Shuttle from Waltdisney Square. Ticket price is $67. ” , on the grounds that this would be borrowed from the Lonely Planet guide.
I find this more sloppily lazy than offensive or shabby.
And I think 20% of what is published should be retracted. Weather forecast should, too.
What am I missing ?
Reply to Alberto Pedrinha April 19, 2012 at 5:59 am
Dear Alberto Pedrinha,
I have just finished painting your apartment, would you please pay me double the going rate, and write a letter of recommendation stating that I was an extremely efficient house painter? House painters can do anything if they set their minds to it. It is all about attitude (you can leave that bit out from the letter).
Ahem. Dear Bernard Soares. I don’t understand the metaphor, or let’s call it a parable. Please enlighten me.
In reply to Alberto Pedrinha April 19, 2012 at 8:19 am
Another can of worms. How editing can be informative.
Dear Alberto,
I want to agree with you intitially wrote. What “ideas” were they borrowing and from whom?
When was there last an “idea” in that field?
Perhaps they should find their own form of words though.
When I wet and looked up the full lists of names for the publications mentioned, I did not find the authors of the review in question on any of them.
1. Cancer Res. 2008 Jul 1;68(13):5405-13.Schmidt M, Böhm D, von Törne C, Steiner E, Puhl A, Pilch H, Lehr HA, Hengstler JG, Kölbl H, Gehrmann M. PMID: 18593943
2. Mol Carcinog. 2010 Apr;49(4):410-28.Sander M, Slaga TJ, Harris CC. PMID: 20082328
3. Int J Clin Oncol. 2010 Dec;15(6):544-51. Hiraoka N. PMID: 20924634
4. Cancer Metastasis Rev. 2007 Dec;26(3-4):373-400. Inflammatory cell infiltration of tumors: Jekyll or Hyde. Talmadge JE, Donkor M, Scholar E. PMID: 17717638
5. J Clin Oncol. 2010 Jan 1;28(1):105-13. Tumor-associated lymphocytes as an independent predictor of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer. Denkert C, Loibl S, Noske A, Roller M, Müller BM, Komor M, Budczies J, Darb-Esfahani S, Kronenwett R, Hanusch C, von Törne C, Weichert W, Engels K, Solbach C, Schrader I, Dietel M, von Minckwitz G. Erratum in J Clin Oncol. 2010 Feb 1;28(4):708.
6. Cancer Metastasis Rev. 2011 Mar;30(1):5-12. Tumor immunosurveillance in human cancers. Mlecnik B, Bindea G, Pagès F, Galon J. PMID: 21249426
BUT
ANOTHER CANOF WORMS:
What struck me while doing this exercise is that the abstract of
Cancer Metastasis Rev. 2011 Mar;30(1):5-12. looks very simialr to the abstract of
Semin Immunopathol. 2011 Jul;33(4):335-40.
I went back and checked. It could be that the wrong abstracts were inserted. That does happen.
I know one might say they are only abstracts, but they are supposed to be summaries of the important contents. Also an abstract is a part of the publication, so the abstract has been published twice, with different titles. What really changed between March and July?
A. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21249426
Cancer Metastasis Rev. 2011 Mar;30(1):5-12.
Tumor immunosurveillance in human cancers.
Mlecnik B, Bindea G, Pagès F, Galon J.
Source
INSERM U872, Integrative Cancer Immunology Team, 15 rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, Paris 75006, France.
Abstract
Until now, the anatomic extent of tumor (TNM classification) has been by far the most important factor to predict the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients. However, in recent years, data collected from large cohorts of human cancers demonstrated that the immune contexture of the primary tumors is an essential prognostic factor for patients’ disease-free and overall survival. Tumoral and immunological markers predicted by systems biology methods are involved in the shaping of an efficient immune reaction and can serve as targets for novel therapeutic approaches. Global analysis of tumor microenvironment showed that the nature, the functional orientation, the density, and the location of adaptive immune cells within distinct tumor regions influence the risk of relapse events. The density and the immune cell location within the tumor have a prognostic value that is superior to the TNM classification, and tumor invasion is statistically dependent on the host-immune reaction. Thus, the strength of the immune reaction could advance our understanding of cancer evolution and have important consequences in clinical practice.
PMID: 21249426
B. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21461991
Semin Immunopathol. 2011 Jul;33(4):335-40. Epub 2011 Apr 5.
The prognostic impact of anti-cancer immune response: a novel classification of cancer patients.
Bindea G, Mlecnik B, Fridman WH, Galon J.
Source
INSERM, U872, Laboratory of Integrative Cancer Immunology, Cordeliers Research Center, 15 rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, 75006 Paris, France.
Abstract
Until now, the anatomic extent of tumor (TNM classification) has been, by far, the most important factor to predict the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients. However, in recent years, data collected from large cohorts of human cancers demonstrated that the immune contexture of the primary tumors is an essential prognostic factor for patients’ disease-free and overall survival. Global analysis of tumor microenvironment showed that the nature, the functional orientation, the density, and the location of adaptive immune cells within distinct tumor regions influence the risk of relapse events. An immune classification of the patients was proposed based on the density and the immune cell location within the tumor. The immune classification has a prognostic value that is superior to the TNM classification, and tumor invasion is statistically dependent on the host immune reaction. Tumor and immunological markers predicted by systems biology methods are involved in the shaping of an efficient immune reaction and can serve as targets for novel therapeutic approaches. Thus, the strength of the immune reaction could advance our understanding of cancer evolution and have important consequences in clinical practice.
PMID: 21461991
Many other publications by the names Mlecnik B and Bindea G (I chose the first two names Cancer Metastasis Rev. 2011 Mar;30(1):5-12) are also quite similar. I know you can only articulate the same things a crertain number of ways, but why bother?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Mlecnik%20B%20Bindea%20G
Yikes ! Indeed, Bernard. Publish or perish , don’t blemish ! But your examples are much more demonstrative than the index case. And always have a junior author that can be blamed for the deed 😉 !