Role of systematic reviews in detecting plagiarism: case of Asim Kurjak

Detection

During a search for studies that might be eligible for inclusion in a systematic review of controlled trials of epidural analgesia in labour in the late 1980s,2 I identified a paper by Asim Kurjak and John Beazley published in Acta Medica Iugoslavica.3 Well over half of the text and some of the data in this paper were identical to material in an unacknowledged paper published three years earlier by other authors in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Commonwealth.4 In correspondence, I learnt that these authors had not been contacted by Professors Kurjak or Beazley.

Professors Kurjak and Beazley had both worked at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London, but the paper purported to be a report of a clinical trial done in Croatia. I first wrote to the British author, Professor Beazley. In a letter sent to me on 25 February 1991 Professor Beazley expressed his surprise and dismay because he had never seen the paper bearing his name. He requested an explanation from Professor Kurjak, now professor of obstetrics at the University of Zagreb, who wrote to me on 26 February 1991 confirming that Professor Beazley had not been involved in the paper. Professor Kurjak's letter to me made no comment on his obviously plagiarised text. …