Cancer Fraud Case Stuns Research Community, Prompts Reflection on Peer Review Process

Extract

A stunning admission of fraud from a respected Norwegian oral cancer researcher, Jon Sudbø, M.D., Ph.D., D.D.S., has left the cancer research community reeling. According to statements from his hospital and his attorney, Sudbø fabricated data for 900 patients in a study published in October in The Lancet, which has now retracted the article. He also “fundamentally mishandled” data for a 2001 article in The New England Journal of Medicine and a 2005 article in Journal of Clinical Oncology .

The fraud, which blindsided Sudbø's colleagues in the United States, prompted the National Cancer Institute to suspend a 300-patient cancer prevention trial. Just days from launching, the trial was set to study Celebrex (celecoxib) and Tarceva (erlotinib) as chemopreventive agents for oral cancer. Sudbø, chosen to lead trial enrollment exclusively in Scandinavia, was set to receive $312,000 per year through 2009 from the grant. He is now on indefinite leave from the Norwegian Radium Hospital.