Abstract
At the request of Sage and the Managing Editor, the following article has been retracted:
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. Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease. 2022;16. doi:10.1177/17534666221099729.
Following the publication of the article, the Managing Editor was contacted by a reader with concerns about data overlap with the authors previously published article.1 The two articles1,2 report the same sample size (310 patients each), and the same number of patients in each of the two groups (155 per group).
After an internal investigation, Sage note that the clinical trial was registered 8 months after the published study start date of October 2018 and that the study protocol posted on ClinicalTrials.gov appears to contain multiple post hoc changes in study status, outcomes, eligibility criteria, and participant numbers, raising concerns about the integrity of the study. According to the published article, this study was conducted between February 2018 and January 2021; however, in July 2021, the authors changed the participant numbers from 360 to 310 and revised outcome measures and timeframes.
The authors did not provide the reason for not citing their previous article1 or respond to the concerns regarding trial registration.
Due to concerns about overlap with a prior publication, as well as extensive changes to trial registration after participant recruitment, Sage and the Managing Editor retract this article.
This retraction supersedes the information provided in the Expression of Concern.
1. Mohamed Amine M, Selma M, Adel S, et al.(2021) 2-Day versus C-reactive protein guided antibiotherapy with levofloxacin in acute COPD exacerbation: a randomized controlled trial. PLoS One 2021; 16(5), e0251716
2. 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.
3. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03698682?cond=NCT03698682&rank=1
The authors did not agree to the notice.