Based on the review and recommendation of the American Diabetes Association’s Subcommittee on Ethical Scientific Publications (ESP), Diabetes Care formally retracts the above-cited article. For reasons described below, the published data are considered to be unreliable.
According to an investigation and analysis of the data conducted by Shiga University of Medical Science (report received 25 November 2013), 10.1% of the albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) data reported in the article did not match original patient records. In the valsartan and amlodipine groups, respectively, 12.5% and 8.1% of the ACR data reported in the article differed from patient records. Close examination of these differences showed that ACR values reported for the valsartan group were smaller, and those for the amlodipine group were larger, than values reported in patient records; these differences “worked to the advantage of valsartan.” The investigative panel of Shiga University of Medical Science concluded that the above-cited article is “inappropriate for [a] scientific paper.”
It should be noted that an erratum to this article recently appeared in Diabetes Care (2013;36:4172. DOI: 10.2337/dc13-er12). As confirmed by the corresponding author, the affiliations for two of the listed SMART investigators were incorrectly listed as Shiga University of Medical Science and Osaka City University. The correct affiliation for both investigators, as stated in the erratum, was Novartis Pharma K.K. The erratum was published in the December 2013 issue of Diabetes Care, which posted online 21 November 2013.
