Inaccurate citations are common in highly cited biomedical papers

History · Published 2 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Researchers examined how accurately highly cited biomedical papers are referenced, reviewing thousands of citations across two independent sets of articles with help from the papers' original authors. About 11% of articles in the first set, and 15% in a second, independent set, contained a citation that misstated or misinterpreted the original work.

The researchers checked citations of 14 widely cited papers from the University of Belgrade (a feasibility study) and 13 from the Mayo Clinic (an independent verification set), confirming with the original authors whether each citing statement matched what the source actually said. The most common problem was citing findings that did not exist, followed by misreading real results, and about a fifth of errors traced back to chains of earlier miscitations. Because the analysis focused only on very highly cited papers, the pattern may not reflect citation accuracy across all biomedical literature.

Why it matters: Citation errors are common even in frequently cited biomedical research, which can quietly spread misinformation through the literature.

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