Citation

Singh KK, Bakshi MS, Swain R, Choudhary P, Krishna S, Kumar A. Journal of South India Medicolegal Association 2021; 13(1): 43-50.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

Suicide is one of the leading causes of unnatural deaths globally. In India, suicide by hanging is the first leading cause of death and there is increase of 15.8% in suicidal deaths during the last decade. Though not essential in each and every case, performing toxicological analysis of blood in suspicious death is useful to provide relevant information that arehelpful in understanding the crime. The present study is intended to analyse the toxicological profile in deaths due to hanging and relationship between blood alcohol and different drugs concentration with suicide by hanging. A total of 300 victims of suicide due to hanging were included during the study period and analysed for blood alcohol, antidepressant drugs such asalprazolam, diazepam, lorazepam, and nitrazepam, opioids like Morphine, Codeine, Papaverine, Pentazocin, anti-epileptic drugs like phenytoin, valproate, carbamazepine, and barbiturates, along with demographic profile of victims. The current study found that male victims outnumbered the females; with mean age of the male and female as 33.3 years and 24.5 years respectively. In case of male, the youngest victim was of age 8 years while in case of female the youngest one was of 11 years age. Majority of the cases were in the age range of 21-30 years irrespective of gender. While analysing the marital status, married cases (54.7%) were seen more as compared to unmarried (45.3%) cases and married males are more in comparison to married female. Toxicological analysis revealed, 76 cases were positive for alcohol in which 72 were males and 4 were females. Toxicological analysis also showed the presence of alprazolam, clonazepam and olanzapine in the blood samples of victims. Thus toxicological profile of the victims should be taken into consideration in suspicious death while deciding the cause and manner of death. © 2021 South India Medico-Legal Association.

Language: en

Keywords

Hanging; Alcohol; Antidepressants; Post-mortem toxicology