Citation

Busardò FP, Vaiano F, Mannocchi G, Bertol E, Zaami S, Marinelli E. Drug Test. Anal. 2016; 9(6): 953-956.

Affiliation

Unit of Forensic Toxicology (UoFT) - Department of Anatomical Histological, Forensic and Orthopaedic Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/dta.2100

PMID

27682186

Abstract

Up to now, no study showed for how long a GHB concentration increase in specific hair segment related to the time of intake can be detected without an eventual decay to basal endogenous values. The aim of this case study was to monitor a GHB peak concentration in a specific hair segment following a single dose administration in a presumed case of GHB-FSA over a period of twelve months. A 27 year-old woman, unconsciously administered with a dose of about 2 grams GHB, gave her signed consent to provide one hair shaft per month during twelve months. Each 5 mm hair segment was analyzed for GHB concentration by HPLC-MS/MS. At first month the 2(nd) hair segment showed the highest GHB concentration (4.3 ng/mg), at the sixth month the 12(th) segment showed the highest GHB concentration (2.65 ng/mg) and finally, at the twelfth month, the 24(th) segment showed the highest GHB concentration of 2.1 ng/mg. The ratios between GHB value in the targeted segment and the mean in the others progressively decreases month by month from 5.56 at 1st month to 2.84 at 12th months. The month-by-month decrease of this ratio can be explained by a 51%decay of hair GHB along the twelve months time. Even if this decay has been demonstrated in a single case report, this constitutes a preliminary "general indication" on substance decay and consequent decrease in concentration ratios between targeted and other hair segments which can guide in the evaluation of GHB-FSA cases and which have to be confirmed in a larger population.

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Language: en