Swedish appeals court ups surgeon's sentence for 'harm' during experimental windpipe transplants

A Swedish appeals court on Wednesday increased a prison sentence for an Italian surgeon over experimental stem cell windpipe transplants on three patients who died.

Dr Paolo Macchiarini made headlines in 2011 for carrying out the world’s first stem cell windpipe transplants at Sweden’s leading hospital and had been sentenced to no prison time by a lower court.

But the Svea Court of Appeal concluded that there were no emergency situations among two of the three patients who later died, while the procedure on the third could not be justified. The appeals court sentenced the Italian scientist to 2 1/2 years in jail for causing the death of three people between 2011 and 2014.

“The patients have been caused bodily harm and suffering,” the appeals court said of the two men and one woman. The patients, it concluded, “could have lived for a not insignificant amount of time without the interventions.”

Macchiarini denied any criminal wrongdoing. Once considered a leading figure in regenerative medicine, Macchiarini has been credited with creating the world’s first windpipe partially made from a patient’s own stem cells.

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Source: ABC News, 21 June 2023