Citation

Siek TJ, Dunn WA. J. Forensic Sci. 1993; 38(3): 713-720.

Affiliation

Analytic Bio-Chemistries, Feasterville, PA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8515223

Abstract

To answer the question, "Is this death due to a drug overdose?" requires at least that the drug be unequivocally identified and a blood concentration reliably determined. The approach taken in this case as standard addition technique and use of three different chromatographic techniques-high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), high performance thin-layer chromatography (HP-TLC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Each of the chromatographies was carried out on the same extract by splitting the residue three ways. HPLC provided a quantitative result which was 1.2 mg/L in blood and HP-TLC and GC/MS confirmed this result with additional quantitative data, information about two metabolites (nordoxylamine and dinordoxylamine) and conclusive identification. Blood nordoxylamine was 0.52 mg/L and doxylamine plus metabolites in urine was 25 mg/L.

Language: en