LAUSR

Fraud in medical publications is an increasing concern. In particular, disciplines related to perioperative medicine—including anaesthesia and critical care—currently hold the highest rankings in terms of retracted papers for research misconduct. The dominance of this dubious achievement is attributable to a limited number of researchers who have repeatedly committed scientific fraud. In the last three decades, six researchers have authored 303 of the 375 papers retracted in perioperative medicine. This narrative review reports on six cases of forged publication in perioperative that resulted in the paper’s retraction. The process that led to unveil the fraud, the impact on clinical practice and changes in regulatory mechanisms of scientific companies and governmental agencies’ policies will also be presented. Fraud in medical publications is a growing concern that affects perioperative medicine requiring a substantial number of papers to be retracted. The continuous control elicited by readers, by local institutional review boards, scientific journal reviewers, scientific societies and government agencies can play an important role in preserving the ‘pact of trust’ between the authors, professionals and ultimately the relationship between doctors and patients.