I read with great interest the recently published article by Schmidt et al. [1] regarding the effect of carbon dioxide pneumoperitoneum. In the summary of their excellent article, they conclude that the interleukin-6 (IL-6) level is significantly higher in the pneumoperitoneum group at 24 h and on day 4.

A completely contrasting result can be seen in Fig. 3 (postoperative proinflammatory IL-6 at different postoperative time points; *p < 0.05), which shows significantly lower levels of something after 48 h and 4 days than in control animals. This contradiction is quickly solved as we read this article further. Figure 4A (effect of carbon dioxide pneumoperitoneum on liver regeneration as assessed by measurement of regenerating liver mass on days 2 and 4) correctly shows the postoperative proinflammatory IL-6 levels at different postoperative time points. The mixing of these figures is unfortunate.

figure 3