Cyprus doctors' association to audit medics at unlicensed clinics

The Cyprus medical association (CyMA) said on Wednesday it is ready to audit doctors working in unlicensed centres, as police in Larnaca continue an investigation into two medical centres offering plasmapheresis treatment, as reported by Cyprus Mail.

CyMA president Petros Agathangelou said the association would begin mapping doctors operating in such centres, calling "charlatanism" a phenomenon that must be tackled alongside misinformation on social media. He pointed to a growing market of treatments marketed as "regenerative" or "anti-ageing", and injectable products sold online with therapeutic claims.

According to Agathangelou, the issue is not the name or novelty of a treatment. "The crucial question is whether what is offered is based on sufficient scientific documentation, is provided by trained professionals, uses appropriate equipment and is applied under safe conditions," he said. He described plasmapheresis as an established method for specific indications, and said its misuse outside those indications is the real concern.

Public information campaign

Agathangelou said CyMA would run an information campaign with the pharmaceutical services to raise public awareness and urged the public to file complaints directly with the association. CyMA secretary Michalis Anastasiades called for a coordinated response to what he described as illegal activity by those seeking to profit at the expense of unsuspecting citizens.

George Miltiadou, president of the CyMA scientific committee, said plasmapheresis does save lives when used to treat pathological and neurological conditions, and that every medical centre's operating licence and certificates should be displayed publicly for patients to check. Nephrology society president Andreas Kourouklaris said the procedure is safe under the right conditions and infrastructure, and urged patients already receiving it in hospitals to continue without concern.

On the Larnaca centre under investigation, Agathangelou said the decision on whether it can keep operating rests with the health ministry pending legal proceedings, while CyMA can examine whether unlicensed doctors work there. Told that a doctor at the centre was allegedly using the CyMA logo, he said the leadership was surprised and had instructed its legal adviser to look into it. He added that CyMA would review legal gaps with the ministry to prevent future cases collapsing for lack of evidence.

Scrutiny of unlicensed plasmapheresis has intensified since the death of Greek singer Giorgos Mazonakis, who suffered a fatal cardiac arrest during the procedure at an unlicensed Athens clinic on September 9, a case that led to the arrest and remand of two doctors.

Police confirmed an investigative team was set up after a health ministry letter dated September 14 naming two Larnaca medical centres. A search found plasmapheresis machines at one but not the other. Larnaca CID chief George Charalambous said the team, working with the medical services, would examine the matters raised in the letter, drawing also on an earlier inquiry opened after a 2023 complaint, the third filed against the same centre since 2022.

The ministry said it received information about the centre last Thursday and inspected the site the following day, but lacks the power to close a facility it has not licensed, leaving that to police. A previous police investigation, launched after a November 2023 letter about a patient who developed serious complications, found insufficient evidence of criminal offences, a conclusion the legal service also reached.

That case followed allegations from cardiothoracic surgeon Marinos Sotiriou, who said a patient was admitted to intensive care with extensive thrombosis after undergoing plasmapheresis at the unlicensed Larnaca centre. Internal medicine physician Vasos Economou said similar complaints against clinics have gone unresolved for years despite meetings with senior officials, including the attorney general, and that one complaint was previously dismissed on the grounds no harm had yet occurred. "Must we wait for someone to die to intervene?" he asked.