diff --git a/Utilities/Matlab/scripts/dvcread.m b/Utilities/Matlab/scripts/dvcread.m
index b5bf03b6355..fb6468b599b 100644
--- a/Utilities/Matlab/scripts/dvcread.m
+++ b/Utilities/Matlab/scripts/dvcread.m
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
         ierror = 1;
     else
         % Remove hyphens before calling str2num
-        cleanline = strrep(textline, '-', '');
+        cleanline = regexprep(textline, '(?<!E)-', ' ');
         [X ierror]=str2num(cleanline);
     end
 end