Karolinska Institute won’t renew contract with famous doctor who experimented in Russia

February 8, 2016  19:47

The Karolinska Institute (KI) in Stockholm “has lost its confidence” in surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, a senior researcher at the institute, and will not renew his contract after it expires on 30 November 2016.

The move comes in the wake of a chilling three-part TV documentary about Macchiarini, a former media darling who was cleared of scientific misconduct charges by KI vice-chancellor Anders Hamsten last summer. Among other things, The Experiments, broadcast in January by Swedish public television channel SVT, suggests that Macchiarini didn't fully inform his patients about the risks of his pioneering trachea implants. Most of the patients died, including at least one—a woman treated in Krasnodar, Russia—who was not seriously ill before the surgery.

According to KI spokesman Claes Keisu, Macchiarini has "overexploited Karolinska [Institute’s] brand in his work in Krasnodar. His activities there have undermined KI’s reputation and damaged the public’s trust in KI." Discrepancies in Macchiarini's CV contributed to the decision as well.

Macchiarini replaced missing or damaged windpipes with an artificial trachea made of a polymer scaffold “seeded” with the patients' own stem cells, which were supposed to grow into living tissue. Between 2011 and 2014, he conducted three such transplants at Karolinska University Hospital, four in cooperation with the Kuban State Medical University in Krasnodar, as part of a formal clinical trial, and one—on a toddler born without a trachea—in Illinois.

In 2014, colleagues at KI alleged that Macchiarini's papers made his transplants seem more successful than they were, omitting serious complications. Two patients treated at Karolinska died, and a third has been in intensive care since receiving a trachea in 2012. The Illinois patient also died, as did three patients in Russia. Bengt Gerdin, a professor emeritus of surgery at Uppsala University in Sweden who investigated the charges at KI's request,concluded in May 2015 that differences between published papers and lab records constituted scientific misconduct. But Hamsten rejected that conclusion in August, based on additional material Macchiarini submitted later.

The documentary shows footage of a patient who says Macchiarini reassured him before the surgery that experiments had been done on pigs, when in fact none had taken place. It also follows the wrenching story of the first patient in Krasnodar. A 33-year-old woman, she was living with a tracheostomy that she said caused her pain, but her condition was not life-threatening. The film suggests that she wasn't fully aware of the risks of the operation, and that Macchiarini and his colleagues knew about problems with the implant before the surgery. The patient's first implant failed, and she received a second one in 2013. She died in 2014.

The fact that a relatively healthy patient underwent Macchiarini's experimental procedure caused consternation in Sweden. “We've seen footage in SVT's documentary that is truly alarming, and I empathise deeply with the patients and their relatives,” Hamsten said in a KI statement issued last week.  “The information that has emerged in the documentaries on the ethical nature of these operations is new to Professor Hamsten,” the university said. The operations, if they occurred as shown in the documentary, would never have been approved at KI, the university says.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter


 
  • Video
 
 
  • Event calendar
 
 
  • Archive
 
  • Most read
 
  • Find us on Facebook
 
  • Poll
Are you aware that in 2027 medical insurance will become mandatory for all Armenian citizens?
I’m aware, and I'm in favor
I’m not aware, and I'm against
I'm aware, but I'm still undecided
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm in favor
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm against
It doesn't matter to me