EXPRESSION OF CONCERN: Selective Depletion of Tumor Neovasculature by Microbubble Destruction with Appropriate Ultrasound Pressure

Abstract

EXPRESSION OF CONCERN: J. Wang, Z. Zhao, S. Shen, C. Zhang, S. Guo, Y. Lu, Y. Chen, W. Liao, Y. Liao, and J. Bin, “ Selective Depletion of Tumor Neovasculature by Microbubble Destruction with Appropriate Ultrasound Pressure,” International Journal of Cancer 137, no. 10 (2015): 2478–2491, https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.29597.

This Expression of Concern is for the above article, published online on 26 May 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), and has been published by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Christoph Plass; the Union for International Cancer Control; and John Wiley and Sons Ltd. The Expression of Concern has been published due to concerns raised by a third party regarding the mouse tumor volumes reported in Figure 6c. The tumor sizes reported in Figure 6c exceed community standards for humane endpoint limits in mouse tumor studies, which presents a significant animal welfare concern and a violation of the journal's policy on animal studies. Although the authors have stated in the article that the animal experiments were performed in accordance with NIH guidelines, this statement is not accurate. The authors provided the ethics approval per the journal's request, however, the authors' institutes were not responsive when asked to confirm the compliance with local and national guidelines.

The authors claim that when reviewing the data, they realized, that the method of depicting tumor boundaries and defining tumor regions was inaccurate, resulting in a great overestimate of the tumor volumes. They have reanalyzed the tumor volume in Figure 6c and they found that all tumor volumes were less than 2000 mm³.

The journal team did not find the authors response satisfactory and could not exclude that the above-mentioned concerns affect the related conclusions of the article. Therefore, the journal has decided to issue an Expression of Concern to inform and alert the readers.