Questionable Ethics Statements on Three Articles by YE Guanzhi et. al.
A same ethical approval number (XMYY-2024KYSB090) in three articles [1, 2, 3] coauthored by YE Guanzhi (叶冠志) et. al., with The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University. However, This ethical approval is questionable.
According to these three articles [1, 2, 3], the ethical approval was granted to a retrospectively analysis study. However, the descriptions of the original participant recruitments are inconsistent among these three articles. In the article [1], the recruitment began in October, 2020, and ended in March, 2024; in article [2], the recruitment began in December, 2020, and ended in May, 2024; while in article [3], the recruitment began in January, 2021, and ended in March, 2024. These suggest that three distinct retrospectively analysis studies were reported in these three articles, however, these articles share a same ethical approval.
What is more, no ethical approval for the original participant recruitments was disclosed on these three articles.
Reference
[1] 10.1186/s12885-025-15497-8