Two studies touting the use of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) for noninvasive detection of coronary microvascular dysfunction have been retracted on the basis of findings of research misconduct.
The articles, by a team of University of Oxford researchers, were published in 2018 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and were reported by theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology at that time.
The journal voted to retract the articles after an investigation by a University of Oxford panel "concluded that the first author, Alexander Liu was responsible for misconduct in research." Notably, "no other co-author was found to be involved in the misconduct."
With regard to the first article, the university's findings were that
"certain data had been fabricated by the first author amending the actual study data so that the paper and the central illustration would show a compelling case that T1 mapping could distinguish between epicardial obstructive coronary artery disease and coronary microvascular dysfunction;
the number of control subjects, their age, and the statistical test to calculate the significance of a difference between the patients in this paper were incorrect; and
Figure 2 had been fabricated."
The university panel favored retraction, noting that the article had "major irregularities and its conclusions were unsafe."
