2010 paper by team under AIIMS chief lifted text from 2005 study

Dr Deka was the lead author of the study titled Cochlear Implantation in Waardenburg Syndrome: The Indian Scenario. This was published by the Department of ENT at AIIMS in the same journal in 2010.

Among the instances of the text being reproduced are these:

* “In conclusion,the results of this study indicated that children with WS exhibiting normal inner ear anatomy derive significant benefit from CI and do so to an extent comparable to that reported for the general population of implanted children. Although we reported on a relatively small cohort these data may be used for counseling the parents of children with WS considering CI” — Cochlear Implantation in Waardenburg’s Syndrome,published in 2005.

“The results of this study indicate that children with WS exhibiting normal inner ear anatomy derive significant benefit from cochlear implantation and the results are comparable to those reported for the general population of implanted children. Although we reported on a relatively small cohort,these data may be used for counseling the parents of children with WS who are considering cochlear implantation” — Cochlear Implantation in Waardenburg syndrome: The Indian Scenario,published in 2010.

* “The findings of this study indicated that they did not differ from other implanted patients in terms of either pre-implantation radiolologic and audiologic data or surgical and speech perception outcome parameters. This information is important for pre-implantation counseling and may be used for the vast majority of children with WS who exhibit normal anatomy of inner ear. These data,however,are not applicable for children with WS with inner ear malformations.” — 2005 study.

“The findings of our study indicate that patients with WS did not differ from other implanted patients in terms of either preimplantation radiologic and audiological data or surgical and speech perception outcome parameters. This information is important for preimplantation counseling,and may be used for the vast majority of children with WS who exhibit normal anatomy of the inner ear. However,these data are not applicable for children with WS with inner ear malformations.” — 2010 study.

* “Conclusions. Children with Waardenburg’s syndrome(WS) derive significant benefit from cochlear implantation(CI) and do so to an extent that is comparable to that of the general population of implanted children.” — 2005 study.

“Conclusion. Children with Waardenburg syndrome exhibiting normal inner ear anatomy like those included in our cohort,derive significant benefit from cochlear implantation and results are comparable to those reported for the general population of implanted children.” — 2010

Although the AIIMS study cited Migirov’s article as reference number nine,no indexed citation was provided.

Responding to an email query from The Indian Express,Dr Migirov said: “Yes,there is a case of plagiarism but it is too late to speak about that since the article is already published. I think the editors and the teams of the scientific journals should take the responsibility,check the material properly and prevent publishing of articles containing the plagiarism. As an author,I cannot prevent the copying of my paper.”

She said she was not in touch with Deka and was not aware of the AIIMS article until The Indian Express brought it to her notice.

When his comments were sought,Deka said: “It is unfortunate that the conclusion has been produced like this. A lot of times our junior residents prepare the manuscripts and put the surgeon’s name to make the report more conclusive. Since I was the surgeon in this case,they have used my name. I will immediately write to Dr Migirov and the journal editor to say that similar portions should have been cited. Even if we reached the same conclusion,we should have cited that our results were the same as the study by Tel Aviv University.”

The Migirov paper was co-authored by Yael Henkin,Minka Hildesheimer,Chava Muchnik and Jona Kronenberg. The Deka paper had Kapil Sikka,Gaurav Chaturvedy,Chirom Amit Singh,C Venkat Karthikeyan,Rakesh Kumar and Shivani Aggarwal as co-authors.