Robert Getzenberg, a former Hopkins and Pitt cancer researcher, has retracted another paper, his seventh.
Here’s the notice for “Highly specific urine-based marker of bladder cancer,” a paper first published in Urology in 2005:
This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).
This article has been retracted at the request of the Authors.
Two potential issues with the study have been identified. First, it is not clear that the samples were analyzed in a blinded fashion as indicated in the text. Secondly, there appear to be some effects of freeze thaw cycles on antigen stability that were not revealed until after this work was completed. As a result of these potential issues, the authors are no longer certain that the conclusions of the article are fully supported. The authors were not aware of these problems at the time of publication.
This retraction has been requested by Timothy Barder, Marko Babjuk and Robert H. Getzenberg. Douglas M. Potter was responsible for the data analysis, and knew of no problems with the data at the time; thus, he cannot vouch for the reasons given for the retraction but does not object to the retraction. Despite reasonable efforts, Thu-Suong Van Le and Raymond Miller were unable to be reached to approve this retraction.
The paper has been cited 39 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Getzenberg now works at Memphis-based biotech GTx. The company was in the news last week after two doctors involved in its clinical trials agreed to pay fines because they were accused of selling stock on insider news.