A court in Sweden has ordered for Paolo Macchiarini, the Italian Surgeon earlier arrested to be given a suspended sentence, following an experimental stem-cell windpipe transplant that went wrong. The once leading transplant surgeon had been slammed with two counts of assault, all of which have been cleared.
The three patients he cared for in Sweden were now dead. Prosecutors had suggested that Mr. Macchiarini serve five years in prison however, the local court ruled that he had not meant to cause the victims bodily harm. Mr. Macchiarini has long since denied the allegations.
Macchiarini was praised internationally in 2011 for carrying out the world’s first synthetic organ transplant at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden. His work using plastic tracheas with stem cells held the hope of patients no longer seeking donors before they could undergo surgery.
He had been employed a year previously from Italy, regardless of the unsuitable statements from his last employer. A post-graduate student from Eritrea, Andemariam Beyene was the first-ever receiver of the transplant in 2011 and unfortunately died almost three years later after a series of infections resulting from the transplant.
His synthetic, artificial trachea was found to have been loose. Two more patients were additionally also given transplants at the Karolinska hospital and they too died.
Christopher Lyles, from the US, and Yesim Cetir, were both given a synthetic trachea transplant in the same year. Mr. Lyles died months after that. And Ms. Cetir who was in her twenties died six years later in 2017. Other patients who were treated abroad and also found dead from the transplant include a Russian mother Julia Tuulik. Mr. Macchiarini was eventually suspended by the famed Karolinska Institute. He was later exposed by a documentary aired on TV exposing the shocking practices he made during surgery and prosecutors charged him with criminal activities.
