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XXXV TIAFT Annual Meeting Poster Presentations
METHAMPHETAMINE BLOOD CONCENTRATIONS IN 17 FATAL CASES

Yoo Y.C., Chung H.S., Choi H.K., Jin W.T., Park M.J., Yang W.K.

National Institute of Scientific Investigation, Division of Narcotics Analysis, 331-1 Shinwol-Dong, Yangchon-Ku, Seoul, Korea

The abuse of methamphetamine is so prevalent that fatalities from the overdose of this drug have occurred. In order to determine the cause of death it is very important to measure the contents of methamphetamine in blood. In this study the fatal methamphetamine concentration in blood was investigated in the post-mortem blood of 17 victims who had a history of methamphetamine abuse. Blood was obtained at autopsy from fatalities.
Methods. Gas chromatography with FID along with mass spectrometry (GC/MS) were used for the screening and quantification of methamphetamine (MA) and its major metabolite, amphetamine (AM) in blood. In all cases, no other drugs were detected. Calibration curves of MA and AM were linear from 0.1 to 1 and from 1 to 50 µg/ml. As low as, 0.01 µg/ml of both MA and AM was detected in this method. The recoveries of MA and AM over the concentration 5 to 50 µg varied from 93.9 ± 1.1% and 96.6 ± 1.7% respectively. Coefficient of variation was found comparable for MA and AM with the range of 1.2-5.0%.
Results. MA concentration in 17 postmortem blood ranged from 0.01 to 39.65 µg/ml (average 9.4 µg/ml), while AM varied from not detectable to 6.96 µg/ml (average 1.1 µg/ml). In one case the victim, who was hospitalized for one week before dying showed a very low blood MA concentration of 0.014 µg/ml.
In 13 of the 17 cases the cause of death was determined to be directly due to the intoxication of MA, because no other traumatic or pathological causes of death were observed while in 4 cases traumatic events have been reported as cause of death.

  Abstract 097

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