Retraction and republication—Effectiveness of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of osteoarthritis pain: a network meta-analysis

Abstract

On March 17, 2016, The Lancet published online a network meta-analysis of the effectiveness of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for pain in knee and hip osteoarthritis, and the Article was published in print on May 21, 2016.1 On July 6, 2016, the authors drew our attention to two missed trials2,3 and a duplicate publication.4,5 Lancet editors discussed the corrections that were needed in the paper, and decided, in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines, that because of the extent of the changes necessary, the previous version of the Article should be retracted and a corrected version republished after reanalysis and rereview. Today we retract the previous version and republish online the corrected version of the Article,6 in which the findings are slightly changed—ie, confidence intervals around the effects have changed slightly, mainly in the second digit after the decimal point, and the test for a linear dose effect is now significant for only one preparation (but was for three in the previous publication). The overall message remains the same. The previous version of the Article has been added to the appendix in the new version and is marked retracted. For the Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines see http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines