Naples, Domenico Caliendo's death, heart surgeons at the Review Court: waiting for the expert report

A double judicial process has brought the death of Domenico Caliendo, the two-and-a-half-year-old boy who died on February 21 at the Monaldi Hospital in Naples, back to the forefront of the investigation today. The boy, who died on February 21 at the Monaldi Hospital in Naples, following the failure of a heart transplant performed on December 23, 2025.

On one hand, there's the hearing before the Court of Review, called to consider the appeals filed by the defense attorneys of cardiac surgeons Guido Oppido and Emma Bergonzoni against the interdiction measures imposed against them. On the other, there's growing anticipation for the expert report entrusted by Naples preliminary investigations judge Mariano Sorrentino to a panel of experts, called upon to reconstruct the entire clinical sequence that preceded the child's death.

The appeal of cardiac surgeons

The hearing before the Review Court represents one of the most delicate phases of the investigation. Oppido and Bergonzoni have been given interdictory orders lasting one year for the team leader and seven months for the surgeon, respectively.

As part of the investigation, they are accused of falsifying the surgical report, related to the alleged alteration of the child's medical records. It is precisely this aspect that is at the heart of the investigative challenge and the defense's initiatives.

The lawyers for the two professionals are now asking the Court of Review to reevaluate the grounds for the measure and the evidentiary framework underlying it. The judges will then have to verify the validity of the allegations and the precautionary measures that led to the professional ban.

The medical record and the documentation node

The medical records issue is one of the strands of the investigation into Domenico's death. According to the prosecution's line of reasoning, the medical records were altered, and it is precisely on this point that the hypothesis of falsifying the surgical report has been raised.

This is a particularly delicate step because the medical documentation represents one of the elements through which investigators and the judiciary are trying to precisely reconstruct what happened during and after the transplant.

But the process isn't limited to the documentary issue. The core of the investigation remains the reconstruction of the child's medical history and the decisions made in the nearly two months between the surgery and his death.

The super-expertise to reconstruct the last two months of life

It is in this context that the expert report ordered by preliminary investigations judge Mariano Sorrentino takes on particular significance. The panel appointed by the judge is composed of professors Biagio Solarino, Ugolino Livi, and Ferdinando Luca Lorini.
The experts were called to answer the questions posed by the investigating judge and to reconstruct, on the basis of the medical documentation and available elements, what happened to Domenico from the day of the transplant, 23 December 2025, until his death, 21 February 2026.

A time span of nearly two months that focuses on a key part of the investigation's questions: the child's clinical progress, his post-surgery conditions, any complications that occurred, and the therapeutic choices made during his hospital stay.

The experts' report could therefore represent a fundamental step in outlining the medical framework of the case and establishing which elements influenced the final outcome.

Two levels of investigation that now intersect

The preliminary investigation and the expert report proceed on different levels, but they inevitably intersect in the overall reconstruction of the case. On the one hand, the judges will have to assess the position of the two cardiac surgeons with respect to the disputes related to the medical records; on the other, the experts will have to provide the judiciary with a technical assessment of little Domenico's medical history.

This is a phase in which every detail takes on particular importance. The child's death has triggered a complex process, in which reconstructing responsibility cannot ignore the technical analysis of the child's clinical conditions and the decisions made during hospitalization.

For this reason, the expert report is awaited with particular attention: its conclusions could provide decisive guidance for the continuation of the investigation and for the assessment of the various positions involved. At the same time, the preliminary investigations court will have to rule on the interdictory measures imposed on the two cardiac surgeons.