Paolo Macchiarini: A surgeon’s downfall

[JAMMY]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37311038

 

Quote

Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. But some of his academic research is now seen as misleading, and most of the patients who received his revolutionary treatment have died. What went wrong?

Quote

n July 2011, the world was told about a sensational medical breakthrough that had taken place in Stockholm, Sweden. The Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini had performed the world's first synthetic organ transplant, replacing a patient's trachea, or windpipe, with a plastic tube.

The operation promised to reshape organ transplantation. No longer would patients have to wait for a donor organ, only to run the risk of biological rejection. Plastic tracheas - and possibly other organs - would be produced quickly, safely, and made-to-measure for each patient.

It was a story that befitted the reputation of Dr Macchiarini's workplace, the prestigious Karolinska Institute, whose professors decide each year who will receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

But five years on, Macchiarini's headline-making work has brought KI and its sister organisation, the Karolinska University Hospital, no glory. Of the nine patients that received the treatment, in Sweden and elsewhere, seven have died. The two still alive have had their synthetic tracheas removed and replaced with a windpipe from a donor.

Quote

Finally the doctor admits in an irritated tone, "We didn't do any animal study that involves large animals - of course not, we didn't have the time. The material was proven, the material was studied. We used fibres that were approved by the FDA [the US Food and Drug Administration]. And now all the studies are coming."

Lindquist called his documentary series The Experiments. The implication is that Macchiarini was treating humans as guinea pigs, instead of doing preliminary research on animals.

The Experiments will be broadcast in the UK as part of BBC4's Storyville strand in October 2016