Citation

Tracqui A, Kintz P, Branche F, Ludes B. Int. J. Legal Med. 1998; 111(1): 32-34.

Affiliation

Institut de Médecine Légale, Faculte de Medecine, Strasbourg, France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9457536

Abstract

A non-fatal case of Nerium oleander (common oleander) self-poisoning in a 45-year-old female is presented. Initial symptoms were nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, phosphenes, cardiovascular shock and sinus brady-cardia. Blood and urine were assayed for oleandrin, the major cardiac glycoside of N. oleander, using a highly specific HPLC/MS procedure. The blood concentration of oleandrin at admission was 1.1 ng/ml. This is the first report of an oleander intoxication ascertained by the mass spectrometric identification of oleandrin in blood. HPLC/MS appears to be the method of choice for the forensic-toxicological investigation of poisonings by cardiac glycosides.

Language: en