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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Relationship between VEGF protein expression and lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma among Asians: a meta-analysis

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Tumor Biology

This article was retracted on 17 August 2015

Abstract

We carried out the current meta-analysis of relevant cohort studies in an attempt to investigate the relationships between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein expression and lymph node (LN) metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) among Asians. A range of electronic databases were searched, including Web of Science (1945 ∼ 2013), the Cochrane Library Database (Issue 12, 2013), MEDLINE (1966 ∼ 2013), EMBASE (1980 ∼ 2013), CINAHL (1982 ∼ 2013), and Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM) (1982 ∼ 2013) with cross-referencing without language restrictions. Meta-analysis was conducted using the STATA 12.0 software. Crude odds ratio (OR) with their 95 % confidence interval (95 %CI) was calculated. Twelve clinical cohort studies with a total of 1,045 PTC patients were included in our meta-analysis, The results of our meta-analysis revealed that patients with VEGF-positive tumors had a 3.02-fold higher risk of LN metastasis than that of patients with VEGF-negative tumors (OR = 3.02, 95 %CI = 2.05 ∼ 4.43, P < 0.001). Furthermore, subgroup analysis by country suggested that VEGF-positive expression was associated with an increased risk of LN metastasis in PTC patients among Chinese populations (OR = 3.33, 95 %CI = 2.30 ∼ 4.83, P < 0.001), but not among Korean, Turkish, and Japanese populations (all P > 0.05). Our findings support the view that VEGF protein expression may be correlated with LN metastasis in PTC patients, especially among Chinese populations.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Surgery, Heilongjiang Hospital, Zhongshan Road No. 82, Xiangfang District, Harbin, 150000, People’s Republic of China

    De-Feng Chang, Zhong-Qing Xu & Bin Sun

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  1. De-Feng Chang
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  3. Bin Sun
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Correspondence to De-Feng Chang.

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The Publisher and Editor retract this article in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). After a thorough investigation we have strong reason to believe that the peer review process was compromised.

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Chang, DF., Xu, ZQ. & Sun, B. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Relationship between VEGF protein expression and lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma among Asians: a meta-analysis. Tumor Biol. 35, 5511–5518 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-014-1725-3

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