$re = '/(\S)\t[0-9]*\R\t+/';
$str = ' 9.1 The Euclidean Group in Two-Dimensional 152
Space E2
CHAPTER 10: THE LORENTZ AND POINCARÉ GROUPS,
AND SPACE-TIME SYMMETRIES 173
';
$subst = "$1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php