At the request of Sage and the Journal Editor, the following article has been retracted:
Ma, C., Li, Y., Zhang, X., Zhao, G., & Xu, H. Levels of vascular endothelial growth factor and matrix metalloproteinase-9 proteins in patients with glioma. Journal of International Medical Research. 2014;42(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/0300060513481924
Sage was made aware of concerns raised on PubPeer regarding the following figures in the article:
Figure 1A (Photomicrograph showing the expression of VEGF in low-grade glioma tissue, lower right corner) appears to overlap with Figure 1C (Photomicrograph showing the expression of MMP-9 in low-grade glioma tissue, upper left corner)
Figure 1B (Photomicrograph showing the expression of VEGF in high-grade glioma tissue, lower right corner) appears to overlap with Figure 1D (Photomicrograph showing the expression of MMP-9 in high-grade glioma tissue, upper left corner)
The authors did not respond to requests for comments nor provide raw, unedited, and uncropped images underlying these figures.
Due to unresolved concerns about image integrity that call into question the validity of the findings, this article has been retracted.
The authors did not respond to the decision to retract.
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