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XXXV TIAFT Annual Meeting Poster Presentations
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ETHANOL LEVELS OF VITREOUS HUMOUR OF BOTH EYES IN THE SAME INDIVIDUAL

Sousa A.P., Vieira D.N., Oliveira M.M.F., Pinho Marques E.G., Monsanto P.V.

Servicos de Toxicologia Forense Instituto de Medicina Legal de Coimbra, Largo da Sé Nova, 3000 Coimbra, Portugal

The analysis of blood alcohol concentrations plays an important role in medico legal investigations, specially when there is an unnatural or untimely death.
Forensic toxicologists may use an alternative sample, such as vitreous humour (V.H.), to estimate a blood alcohol concentration whenever blood is unavailable or contaminated.
The aim of this work was to investigate if there are significant variations between alcohol values determinate in V.H. of right eye (R E.) and left eye (L.E.) of the same person.
Simultaneous samples of V.H. of both eyes were taken from forty cadavers and a head space gas chromatography method, with internal standard, was employed to quantify the ethanol concentntions. The obtained values were statistically studied and a good correlation between R.E. and L.E. vitreous humour ethanol concentrations was found.
Conclusions. V.H. of both eyes, can be indistinctly use, since there is no statistically significant difference between their ethanol levels.

  Abstract 133

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