Recently, the 5GH Team received an anonymous e-mail accusing the ethical statement in article [1] of being false. The e-mail states that the number SQ2018-039-01, which was reported in article [1] as an ethical approval number, is in fact an application number, not an approval number. It further explains that "SQ" stands for the Chinese word 申请 (application).
A further investigation by the 5GH Team identified two additional articles [2–3] that also reported the same so-called ethical approval number, SQ2018-039-01. However, the participant recruitment described in articles [1–3] is inconsistent. Specifically, the participants were recruited from different hospitals, and the total number of participants varied across the three studies [1–3]. For example, the participants in study [2] were recruited from hospitals in a southern province and a northern province, whereas the participants in study [3] were recruited from hospitals in three southern provinces. These discrepancies suggest that the ethical statements in articles [1–3] are questionable.
Those three articles [1-3] share a common author, KE Xi (柯喜) with Fujian Cancer Hospital. LIU Dun (刘敦) with Fujian Medical University was also one of the core authors.
Reference
[1] 10.1038/s41598-024-53481-7