Dishonest behavior in biomedical journals: analysis of two cases and reflections on their detection

Introduction. Scientific dishonesty is a persistent, increasingly sophisticated phenomenon that poses a growing challenge for editorial work in biomedical journals. Objectives. To describe the process of detecting fraudulent publication of articles submitted to a scientific journal in health sciences during 2024. Methods. A retrospective observational documentary study was conducted. All original manuscripts received during 2024 by a scientific journal in health sciences were included. Each text was evaluated using the Similarity Check software and analyzed by the editorial committee in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) criteria. Results. Of the 71 manuscripts evaluated, two cases of fraud were identified. The first corresponded to duplicate publication by the same author; the second, to covert plagiarism by translation from another author. In both cases, the manuscripts were rejected, the authors were notified, and the right of reply was offered, which was not satisfactory. Conclusion. Two attempts at fraudulent publication were documented in 2024, detected using similarity tools and confirmed by editorial analysis.