ArticlemBio2016
The Prevalence of Inappropriate Image Duplication in Biomedical Research Publications.
Article in mBio, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 74 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
74 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- High prevalence of articles with image-related problems in animal studies of subarachnoid hemorrhage and low rates of correction by publishers.PLoS biology · 2025Pooled it
- Machine learning based screening of potential paper mill publications in cancer research: methodological and cross sectional study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Article
- Fake publications in biomedical science: red-flagging method indicates mass production.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Image fraud in nuclear medicine research.European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging · 2026Article
- Artificial intelligence to enhance research integrity in evidence-based medicine: toward scalable trustworthiness assessment.Frontiers in research metrics and analytics · 2026Article
- ASM incorporates Imagetwin to address image duplication and preserve scientific accuracy.mBio · 2025Article
- Identifying common patterns in journals that retracted papers from paper mills: a cross-sectional study.Research integrity and peer review · 2025Article
- The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- How good are medical students and researchers in detecting duplications in digital images from research articles: a cross-sectional survey.Research integrity and peer review · 2025Article
- Article
- Quantifying Public Engagement With Science and Malinformation on COVID-19 Vaccines: Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Guidance needed for using artificial intelligence to screen journal submissions for misconduct.Research ethics · 2025Article
- Article
- The Erosion of Healthcare and Scientific Integrity: A Growing Concern.Journal of healthcare leadership · 2025Review
- The undeclared use of third-party service providers in academic publishing is unethical: an epistemic reflection and scoping review.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Article
- How to fight fake papers: a review on important information sources and steps towards solution of the problem.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Review
- Identifying fabricated networks within authorship-for-sale enterprises.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Experts fail to reliably detect AI-generated histological data.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The changing roles of scientific journals.mBio · 2024Review
- The crucial role of bioimage analysts in scientific research and publication.Journal of cell science · 2024Article
14 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Inaccurate data in scientific papers can result from honest error or intentional falsification. This study attempted to determine the percentage of published papers that contain inappropriate image duplication, a specific type of inaccurate data. The images from a total of 20,621 papers published in 40 scientific journals from 1995 to 2014 were visually screened. Overall, 3.8% of published papers contained problematic figures, with at least half exhibiting features suggestive of deliberate manipulation. The prevalence of papers with problematic images has risen markedly during the past decade. Additional papers written by authors of papers with problematic images had an increased likelihood of containing problematic images as well. As this analysis focused only on one type of data, it is likely that the actual prevalence of inaccurate data in the published literature is higher. The marked variation in the frequency of problematic images among journals suggests that journal practices, such as prepublication image screening, influence the quality of the scientific literature.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.