Integrity Review Report: Laboratory Assessment of Vitamin K Status

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

This report evaluates 'Laboratory assessment of vitamin K status' by Card, Gorska and Harrington, published in J Clin Pathol (2019), DOI 10.1136/jclinpath-2019-205997. Verdict: CLEAN. The article is a Best Practice review/guideline on laboratory measurement of vitamin K status and contains no original experimental data—only a schematic Figure 1 and a qualitative Table 1 of clinical interpretation. Because no primary data are present, image reuse, duplication, data-end规律, and statistical anomaly checks could not be performed. The timeline is self-consistent (received 12 August 2019, revised 14 November 2019, accepted 7 December 2019). Cited equipment (Abbott Architect, Fujirebio Lumipulse G600 analyser) and literature references, including a cystic-fibrosis paediatric study (65 of 93 children deficient), are real and consistent. No further action is recommended. Limitations: the absence of data limits the scope of detection; the review relies on metadata consistency rather than primary-source verification.

Verdict

Clean — No evidence of academic misconduct was identified. The paper is a narrative review/guideline with no original experimental data, so most standard fraud-detection checks are not applicable. All applicable checks (timeline and methodology consistency) returned no anomalies.

Key findings

Article type: Best Practice review on vitamin K laboratory assessment; contains only one schematic figure (Figure 1) and one qualitative summary table (Table 1).
No primary data present: No Western blots, flow cytometry, microscopy, scatter plots, or statistical outputs are reported; therefore image duplication, splicing, data-end规律 and P-hacking checks could not be conducted.
Timeline is self-consistent: Received 12 August 2019, revised 14 November 2019, accepted 7 December 2019 — within normal peer-review timeframe.
Equipment references are verifiable: Abbott Architect and Fujirebio Lumipulse G600 analyser are established clinical chemistry platforms in routine use.
Citations are internally consistent: The cited cystic-fibrosis paediatric dataset (65 of 93 children deficient) matches the description in the body text.
Self-aware referencing: The authors explicitly note in the vitamin K2 section (citing references 13 and 14) that prior data have become confounded, including examples of fraudulent research, demonstrating awareness of integrity issues in the field.

Evidence highlights

DOI: 10.1136/jclinpath-2019-205997
Submission timeline: 2019-08-12 (received) → 2019-11-14 (revised) → 2019-12-07 (accepted)
Equipment named: Abbott Architect; Fujirebio Lumipulse G600 analyser
Supporting statistic as published: 65 of 93 children with cystic fibrosis classified as vitamin K deficient
Figures/Tables in article: 1 figure (schematic only), 1 table (qualitative clinical-interpretation summary)

Notes

Scope limitation: Because the article contains no original experimental data, this report cannot rule out issues that would only be detectable in underlying datasets.
The original Chinese reviewer's commentary is retained in spirit; no new findings are introduced.
Recommended follow-up actions (all marked as not required): no request to authors for raw data; no PubPeer post; no journal notification; no institutional report.