On the road to make KJA’s review process robust, transparent, and credible: retracted study in systematic review

초록

While a systematic review is meant to provide a high-quality appraisal of the evidence regarding a healthcare intervention, the conclusions are predicated on the reliability of the included studies [1]. The existence of unreliable or problematic studies in the literature presents difficulties for researchers performing systematic reviews and jeopardizes the credibility of their results. Retracted studies have the most obvious flaws. Retraction is defined as the removal of a published paper from a journal to warn readers of the significant problems identified in the article as a means of maintaining the integrity of scientific literature [2]. Including retracted studies in a systematic review may impact the outcomes and level of evidence, and ultimately provide inaccurate medical guidelines [3,4]. Thus, handling retracted studies in systematic reviews is a critical issue. Recently, we discovered that one of the studies cited in a systematic review and meta-analysis (SRMA) [5], which was accepted through the peer review process in the Korean Journal of Anesthesiology (KJA), was confirmed to have been retracted during the proofreading stage. Given the ambiguous timing, several rounds of editorial discussions were necessary to thoroughly consider the options regarding how to proceed. The KJA editorial board made a concerted effort to perform peer review and editorial assessment in a robust, transparent, and credible manner regarding this disputed SRMA [6].