Abstract
Sage Publishing and the Managing Editor hereby issue an expression of concern for the following article:
Messous S, Trabelsi I, Bel Haj Ali K, et al. Two-day versus seven-day course of levofloxacin in acute COPD exacerbation: a randomized controlled trial. Ther Adv Respir Dis 2022; 16: 17534666221099729.
The managing editor was contacted by a reader with concerns that this article contains several instances of data overlap with an article authored by the same author group:
Mohamed Amine M, Selma M, Adel S, et al. 2-Day versus C-reactive protein guided antibiotherapy with levofloxacin in acute COPD exacerbation: a randomized controlled trial. PLoS ONE 2021; 16: e0251716.
These articles appear to report clinical trials involving the same population, have the same sample size, same number of patients excluded due to inclusion criteria, and appear to have been conducted a year apart. We contacted the authors for comments on the overlap and requested they provide a blank patient consent form and the ethical approval documentation received for both studies.
The authors explained that the data similarities appear by chance, and there is no overlap in participants. Despite repeated follow-up, we have not received an ethical approval documentation or a patient consent form. This expression of concern will stay in place until we can validate that this study was created in line with ethical guidelines, received appropriate patient consent, and we can confirm the author’s claims that these studies report data from distinct participant groups.