diff --git a/syntax.php b/syntax.php
index 330d831..403eb98 100644
--- a/syntax.php
+++ b/syntax.php
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ function render($mode, Doku_Renderer $renderer, $data) {
 
             // remove toc, section edit buttons and category tags
             $patterns = array('!<div class="toc">.*?(</div>\n</div>)!s',
-                            '#<!-- SECTION \[(\d*-\d*)\] -->#e',
+                            '#<!-- SECTION \[(\d*-\d*)\] -->#',
                             '!<div class="category">.*?</div>!s');
             $replace  = array('','','');
             $alpha_data = preg_replace($patterns, $replace, $alpha_data);