Andrea Purgatori, the report of the doctors of the Rome prosecutor's office

Almost a year after the journalist's death Andrea Purgatori, which took place last July 19, the report by the forensic doctors appointed by the Rome prosecutor's office lists a series of errors that were apparently committed by the doctors of the Villa Margherita nursing home in Rome who treated him in that period. They diagnosed him with brain metastases but theautopsy immediately established that there were no metastases at the time of death. Now, the expert opinion has found vascular endocarditis, or a heart infection, which proved fatal for the journalist and television presenter and which was not identified by doctors. To save Andrea Purgatori's life or at least extend it, according to what was reported in the report by the doctors of the Rome prosecutor's office, it would have been enough an antibiotic treatment.

In particular in the report requested by pm Giorgio Orano and signed by Luigi Marsella and Alessandro Mauriello, we read that the attending physician and cardiologist Guido 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”. According to the experts, during the hospitalization on 16 and 17 June last, the signs of a heart infection were clear, the fever had risen, but despite this the journalist was subjected to radiotherapy to counteract hypothetical brain metastases diagnosed by Professor Gianfranco Gualdi.

“It would certainly have been appropriate”, write the experts, «perform 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.” All this perhaps would not have saved the life of the journalist who had already been diagnosed with lung cancer but it could probably have guaranteed him more time, more life. Greater clarity will come with the outcome of theevidentiary incident.

“We thank the prosecutor's office because a very thorough investigation was carried out in a short time,” the lawyer said Alessandro Gentiloni, criminal lawyer who assists the journalist's family. “For now, the hypothesis contained in the complaint has been confirmed, that is, that the diagnosis of extensive brain metastases was incorrect and due to this inaccurate assessment he was not treated for the real pathology that had affected him.”

For the death of Andrea Purgatori were registered in rregister of suspects the radiologist Gianfranco Gualdi and his assistant Claudio Di Biasi who were the first to do the CT scan at the Pio XI clinic. Doctor Maria Chiara Colaiacomo, a member of the same team, and the cardiologist Guido Laudani who was treating the journalist were also investigated.