- EFE
Actualizado el 19/08/2026 02:31 EDT
Nephrologist Hernán Trimarchi, who served as an expert on the Interdisciplinary Medical Board that produced a report in 2021 on the death of Diego Armando Maradona, testified on Tuesday at the trial that the former footballer had “chronic kidney disease”
“There was also acute damage, but the chronic damage had easily been there for 10 years,” Trimarchi said
The specialist explained that Maradona’s kidneys weighed far more than the estimated average for people of his height and showed glomerulosclerosis, a condition involving scarring and blockage of some of the kidney’s blood vessels, as well as acute tubular necrosis
According to the expert, the kidney damage could have been caused by factors identified in Maradona such as “obesity, a history of cocaine use or high blood pressure”
Regarding the weight of the organs, he explained that “for a kidney to fill with fluid, a long period of time has to pass”
Maradona died on November 25, 2020, while receiving home treatment at a house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. According to the autopsy, he died from pulmonary oedema caused by chronic cardiomyopathy aggravated by heart failure
During the two weeks the football star spent at the house, relatives, employees and other people close to him warned that he was “very swollen”, to which his personal physician, Leopoldo Luque, replied: “The swelling will go down.”
Trimarchi said the most effective way to monitor a patient with chronic kidney problems is to weigh them regularly — “that allows you to anticipate heart failure, oedema or dyspnoea, which is when the patient starts to become short of breath” — and said Maradona should also have received nutritional monitoring
Evidence presented during the trial has shown that Maradona was not following a specific diet and, according to testimony from another expert, drank one of the mineral water brands with the highest sodium content on the market
In 2021, the Argentine justice system created an Interdisciplinary Medical Board made up of official experts — including forensic doctors, a cardiologist, two psychiatrists, a toxicologist, a nephrologist and a hepatologist — as well as experts for the defence and the prosecution, to analyse the circumstances surrounding Maradona’s death
All of these professionals began giving evidence before the trial court last week
Last Thursday, cardiologist Gustavo Di Niro, another member of the medical board, testified that the doctors responsible for Maradona’s health failed to act despite numerous warning signs consistent with heart failure, including fluid retention, breathing difficulties and an altered state of consciousness
Alongside Luque, those on trial are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov; psychologist Carlos Díaz; doctor and Swiss Medical company coordinator Nancy Forlini; doctor Pedro Di Spagna; nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni; and nurse Ricardo Almirón. All are charged with simple homicide with eventual intent (dolus eventualis)
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