Dr. Alroughani responds to controversy over ectrims poster
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:00 am
http://multiple-sclerosis-research.blog ... rests.html
What do you think? He is saying these patients were not part of Dr. Sinan's study. It was a retrospective study of patients in their neurological clinic who were treated outside of Kuwait. They did not assess angiographic outcome, so it is not known if the treatment was successful. There was no control group.Thank you for your email.
I will explain the whole situation in order to clarify any points that could be raised.
I have submitted a different abstract to the AAN that included patients that were assessed by the study team in Kuwait. Dr Safar and Dr Tariq sent an a letter to the AAN with the concerns raised in the facebook website.The AAN placed a suspension till i clarified the concerns (my letter to AAN is attached). I responded to the AAN letter and finally the suspension was removed (AAN email is attached). In summary, i responded in that letter and clarified all points in a systematic manner and the AAN council acknowledged that. However, i withdrew the abstract in April since i have asked for an independent investigations in Kuwait to investigate the results after i submitted a letter to the minister of Health in Kuwait to preserve my rights after the unethical accusation to the neurology team.
The abstract submitted to the ECTRIMS is different than that submitted to the AAN. It did not include any patients who were enrolled in the original study. I have clearly indicated in the abstract that one of the major inclusion criteria was patients who underwent angioplasty outside any other study protocol. So, we included patients who underwent the procedure voluntarily outside Kuwait and these were not assessed by either Dr Sinan or Dr Safar. At least 300 Kuwaiti patients underwent the procedure inside and outside Kuwait. Dr Sinan and Dr Safar did not assess these patients because they did the study on only 100 patients in Kuwait.
We retrospectively evaluated the neurological and MRI outcomes (and not the angiographic outcomes). So, the cohort and the analysis were completely different and those doctors Sinan and Safar were not part of out study team. I think they are confused and they did not read the abstract submitted to the ECTRIMS that clearly indicated that we only included patients who did the angioplasty outside Kuwait but in fact they were my patients and i have been following them for the last years. We as a neurology team are following patients on the long term and we see the repeated relapses and attacks along with the increase in MRI activities in our patients that placed them in a great danger. We have an ethical obligation to report these safety concerns in an unbiased scientific manner.
At the end, Dr Sinan and his team are trying to obstruct any data that may raise any concerns about the safety or efficacy of the angioplasty. The reason can be easily explained. Despite that the ethics committee in Kuwait had clearly indicated to Dr Sinan that they should not do any of these procedures, they are still doing the procedure in Kuwait illegally and privately in their clinics (patients are paying between $5000-8000). They do not want any safety or efficacy results that could impact on their illegal procedure even though the patients we included in our ECTRIMS abstract were never been assessed by them.
I hope i have clarified any issues. Thank you again for your email.
Best regards,
Raed Alroughani, MD, FRCPC