Il Corriere exclusively anticipates the expert report on the death of the journalist who had endocarditis and was living with lung cancer. All it took was treating him with antibiotics. The family assisted by the lawyer Alessandro Gentiloni Silveri intervenes in the matter: “Andrea was diagnosed and urgently treated for brain metastases which at the time of death were discovered not to exist. And this led to a deviation from the correct diagnosis and therapy”
The journalist Andrea Purgatori who died on 19 July 2023 was suffering from endocarditis or an infection of the heart valves which coexisted with lung cancer. A simple antibiotic treatment was enough to extend his life. None of the doctors who treated him at the private Villa Margherita clinic in Rome understood the pathology he was suffering from. Now the experts are sure of it. This is reported by Corriere della Sera.
Inertia of the experts
4 attending doctors under investigation. Among these is the cardiologist Guido Laudani who, reports the Corriere della Sera, omitted the identification of the overt pathology in the patient. In the consultancy requested by prosecutor Giorgio Orano (signed by Luigi Marsella and Alessandro Mauriello) we read that Laudani “omitted the prescription of clinical, laboratory and instrumental tests aimed at the diagnosis of infective endocarditis. In our opinion, these omissions are attributable to incompetence and do not comply with the good clinical practices identified by us in the literature”.
Admission to the clinic
Andrea Purgatori, according to experts, began to die as soon as he was admitted to the clinic, i.e. on the night between 16 and 17 June 2023. Before then the signs of the presence of endorcaditis were not clear. Radiotherapy to attack “hypothetical” brain metastases diagnosed by Professor Gianfranco Gualdi was of no use, reports Corriere della Sera. In the meantime, the patient’s clinical condition worsened. In that case “on the basis of the clinical and radiological data and the established therapy it was appropriate to evaluate other diagnostic hypotheses in addition to that proposed by Dr. Giallonardo of an embolism resulting from atrial fibrillation” write the prosecutor’s consultants. “It would certainly have been appropriate – the experts note – to carry out a set of blood cultures and request an infectious disease consultation. The indicated tests could have intercepted the pathogen responsible for the febrile events and infective endocarditis with a subsequent request for transfer to another facility”.
in-depth analysis
Andrea Purgatori, the Court of Rome orders the examination of the body
At the Policlinico Umberto I Hospital
“At Umberto I, with essentially the same elements (as at Villa Margherita, ed.) the doctors immediately hypothesized bacterial endocarditis and promptly carried out the necessary tests to confirm the diagnosis”. The report also excluded the presence of brain metastases indicated by Professor Gualdi (investigated together with his collaborator Claudio Di Biasi, Dr. Maria Chiara Colaiacomo and Laudani himself).