@article{ref1,
title="Concentration distributions of the drugs most frequently identified in post-mortem femoral blood representing all causes of death",
journal="Medicine, science, and the law",
year="2009",
author="Jones, Alan Wayne and Holmgren, Anita",
volume="49",
number="4",
pages="257-273",
abstract="Interpreting the concentrations of drugs determined in post-mortem blood is not an easy task owing to poly-drug use, adverse drug-drug interactions, as well as a host of pre-analytical factors and various artefacts in post-mortem toxicology. Highly sensitive and specific methods (GC-FID, GC-NPD. GC-MS and LC-MS) were used to determine the concentrations of drugs in femoral blood from 24,876 autopsies representing all causes of death. Ethanol topped the list of psychoactive substances (N=8108 or 33%) at mean, median and highest concentrations of 1.43 g/L, 1.20 g/L and 8.0 g/L, respectively. In second place was paracetamol (N=2741 or 11%). Amphetamine and cannabis were the major illicit drugs at 13th and 15th positions, respectively. Newer antidepressants, citalopram (no 3), sertraline (no 14), venlafaxine (no 16) were prominent as were sedative-hypnotics, such as diazepam (no 4), zopiclone (no 5) and zolpidem (no 18). This compilation of drugs and their concentration distributions will be useful to identify and flag for a likely overdose or drug-related poisoning death. The drug concentration together with the findings at autopsy and the police report can then be used to reach a conclusion about the cause and manner of death.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0025-8024",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}