Correlations of Microvascular Blood Flow of Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound and HGF/c-Met Signaling Pathway with Clinicopathological Features and Prognosis of Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma [Retraction]

Abstract

Zhuang PH, Xu L, Gao L, Lu W, Ruan LT, Yang J. Onco Targets Ther. 2017;10:847–857. The Editor and Publisher of OncoTargets and Therapy wish to retract the published article. Concerns were raised regarding the alleged duplication of images between Figure 1A, panel HGF, Adjacent normal tissues and Figure 2A, panel HCC tissues. In addition, there also appears to be duplication of images between Figure 4B and C. The authors did not respond to our queries in regard to the alleged duplication, nor did they provide original data for their study. The Editor requested to retract the article and the authors were notified of this. We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions. The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.

Keywords

• hepatocellular carcinoma
• hepatocyte growth factor
• cellular-mesenchymal to epithelial transition factor
• signaling pathway
• micro-vascular blood flow
• contrast-enhanced ultrasound
• clinicopathological feature
• prognosis