Retraction Note to: Efficacy and safety of sofosbuvir plus ribavirin for treatment of cirrhotic patients with genotype 4 hepatitis C virus in real-life clinical practice

Excerpt

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article. After publication concerns were raised about the reporting of this clinical trial and the authors were asked to provide their raw data files. The raw data underlying the trial were examined by two independent expert statisticians. Both statisticians discovered several instances of regular paired differences between various parameters (such as aspartate transaminase (AST), hemoglobin (Hb), albumin and alanine aminotransferase (ALT)), apparently observed before and during the trial. Furthermore, all 2400 values recorded for albumin before treatment had a 9 as the third digit whilst all 2400 values for albumin during treatment had a 0 as the third digit. In general, there were further clear instances that the raw data presented for several parameters were also not random. It is therefore unlikely that the data presented were obtained from a randomized trial. The Editor-in-Chief no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions presented. Sherief Abd-Elsalam disagrees with this retraction. Mohamed Sharaf-Eldin, Shaimaa Soliman, Asem Elfer, Rehab Badawi and Youssef K. Ahmad have not responded to correspondence from the Publisher about this retraction. …