Retracted Research Publications of Assisted Reproduction: A Review

Background and Objective: Retraction of published articles is global and is increasing. Data on retracted articles in assisted reproduction are limited. The objective of the study was to look into retracted publications in the field of assisted reproductive technology and infertility. Methods: Scopus, www.pubmed.gov, Web of Science and the Retraction Watch website (www.retractionwatch.com) were searched for retracted articles published between 1996 and 2025, using the keywords Assisted reproductive technology, in-vitro fertilization, reproductive endocrinology, embryo transfer, infertility and intracytoplasmic sperm injection. The data extracted included journal, publication title, authors, co-authors, year of retraction and collaborating countries. Results: Between 1996 and 2025, 184 publications were retracted and the number of retractions grew slowly reaching 41 (22.3%) in 2022. These articles were cited 2667 times by various researchers. The top three countries were Egypt, China and Iran making 113 (61.4%) and Saudi Arabia stood at 7th position with United Kingdom at 7 (3.8%). Three hundred and fifty-nine different institutions were the collaborating countries involved in the retractions. The United States of America had the highest, 16; Iran, 15 and Bangladesh, 12, are the top three countries. shows the number of authors in each publication retracted. Among 2-6 authors, 128 (69.5%) publications were retracted. Conclusion: Researchers in assisted reproductive medicine are not immune to fraud, fabrication and data falsification in publications. This trend appears to have increased in the last few years. This behavior is observed even among senior physicians and researchers and institutions are not doing enough to curtail it by judicious oversight and increased supervision.