Two researchers who wrote a review article on the genetics of lung cancer have retracted the paper. But why evidently is for them to know and us to find out.
The article, “Epigenetic aberrant methylation of tumor suppressor genes in small cell lung cancer,” was published in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Disease by authors from Shandong University in China.
According to the retraction notice:
The article “Epigenetic aberrant methylation of tumor suppressor genes in small cell lung cancer” (doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2013.08.21) that appeared on page 532-537 of the August 2013 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Disease needs to be withdrawn for the authors’ reason. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.
We’re not sure what the “authors’ reason” is in this case. A cursory check for plagiarism didn’t produce any hits. And since the paper was a review, problems with the data aren’t an issue — unless they’re citing flawed research of their own, we suppose. We emailed the journal for answers and will update this post if we learn more.
I am sorry to retract a review article 4 years ago. The reason for the retraction of this paper is that we can not pay the page charges due to lacking of the funding support. There is no plagiarism or other academic dishonorable behavior. I am so sorry to give you so much trouble.