Citation

Jones GR, Singer PP. J. Can. Soc. Forensic Sci. 2003; 36(2): 73-76.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Canadian Society of Forensic Science, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00085030.2003.10757554

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A 39-year-old woman died after consuming an overdose of Cimetidine. Concentrations of Cimetidine found were femoral blood 310 mg/L, vitreous humor 52 mg/L, bile 1700 mg/L, liver 436 mg/kg, urine 1400 mg/L and gastric 2850 mg/total contents provided. The only other significant toxicology findings were ethanol: blood 110 mg/100 mL, vitreous 140 mg/100 mL and urine 150 mg/100 mL). At autopsy the woman was also found to have cardiac hypertrophy and micronodular cirrhosis. Cimetidine was determined by high performance liquid chromatography using a CN-Spherisorb 15 cm length, × 4 mm i.d. column using ranitidine as the internal standard. The mobile phase was 0.005M sodium dihydrogen phosphase (pH 4.6) and acetonitriie (50:50). Extraction of the Cimetidine and internal standard was performed with dichloromethane: isopropanol (9:1) after basifying the blood or other sample with 2N sodium hydroxide.