An atrocious doubt for a young couple of parents from Legnano, in the province of Milan: the three-year-old child could have accidentally ingested an antineoplastic drug the risks of which are unknown. The race against time began to search for a poison control center throughout Italy that could reassure the couple or, otherwise, save the little one. The child was first admitted to the Legnano hospital: but the medical staff, not having the resources suitable instruments to check whether the drug was present in the blood and urine, asked for help from the Niguarda hospital in Milan, which however had the same difficulties. At the Poison Control Center of the Mario Negri Institute in Milan, the experts indicated the San Giovanni di Dio and Ruggi d’Aragona hospital in Salerno as the only hospital facility in Italy to have the requirements to process the drug probably ingested by the child. Ruggi’s ability was easily identified since its Clinical Pharmacology service and its Pharmacokinetics, Genetic Pharmacology and Toxicology laboratories are included in the national Sibioc network (Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry). The test tubes with the samples arrived from Legnano very quickly.
Once they arrived in Salerno, the samples were subjected to analyses, carried out in equally rapid times, which they showed no trace of the drug. A sigh of relief for the Lombard couple. Ruggi’s Pharmacology department is one of the few at national level guarantee every type of service relating to clinical pharmacologythat is, capable of providing adequate and specific care in cases of complex therapies in subjects with significant pathologies, including the specific analysis of the risks faced by operators exposed to environmental contamination.
