The American Heart Association’s journal Circulation has issued a lengthy correction to a clinical trial at the centre of a libel action directed against a UK cardiologist. It has also replaced the original study with a corrected version on its website.

The correction (Circulation 2009;120:e71-2, doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.192626) says that the migraine intervention with STARFlex technology (MIST) trial, originally published in March last year (Circulation 2008;117:1397-1404, doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.727271), had “a number of errors and omissions.”

The libel suit, against Peter Wilmshurst, a consultant cardiologist at Shrewsbury Hospital, followed comments he was reported to have made to a cardiology website (http://theheart.org) about the trial, of which he was a joint principal investigator.

The MIST trial aimed to see whether closing a patent foramen ovale with the STARFlex implant would reduce or eliminate …