© 2001 by Oxford University Press
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 93, No. 24, 1832-1833,
December 19, 2001
© 2001 Oxford University Press
EDITORIAL |
Publishing Negative Data: 
-Tubulin Mutations in Lung Cancer
Affiliations of author: Genetics Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD.
Correspondence to: Frederic J. Kaye, M.D., National Naval Medical Center, Bldg. 8, Rm. 5101, Bethesda, MD 20889 (e-mail: fkaye@helix.nih.gov).
It is widely known that the threshold for publishing negative data in the scientific literature is high, and those manuscripts that do survive peer-review are generally restricted to observations that refute a hypothesis that is currently in vogue. This is the case for a study reported by Kelley et al. (1) in this issue of the Journal, which analyzed a series of lung cancer samples for the presence of 
-tubulin mutations. The publication of these data, however, highlights a much broader and more important topic. Excusing an obvious truism, this issue relates to the timely need to rigorously validate the ever-growing number of genes and gene pathways that have been linked to the etiology and/or progression of lung cancer.
Kelley et al. (1)
REFERENCES