Trends in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies

Trends in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies

Fatal cases of strychnine ingestion referred to Fars Legal Medicine Organization; Autopsy findings and Analytical methods used in strychnine detection

Document Type : Research(Original) Article

Authors
Maryam Hosseini
Abdorrasoul Malekpour
Reza Khoshnoud
Hasan Abbasinia
Saeid Gholamzadeh
Tahereh Tarian
Asiyeh Hashemi
Legal Medicine Research Center, Legal Medicine Organization of Iran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Strychnine is a toxic alkaloid which might be the source of poisoning with homicidal and suicidal purposes. Eleven fatal cases of strychnine ingestion were considered in this study. Strychnine was isolated from biological samples using the solid phase extraction (SPE) procedure and detected by analytical methods such as thin layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) as well as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Eleven cases of strychnine ingestion including 8 men and 3 women with minimum and maximum ages of 17 and 56 years old have been studied. Most of them had an education level of high school and had neither criminal history nor psychological disorders except for 3 cases that were using psychiatric drugs. Facial and ocular congestion, facial cyanosis, lung edema and hemorrhage were found in all of the cases. Hyperemic kidney, brain, liver and meninges and lung collapse were other pathologic findings encountered. Reactive gliosis, subarachnoid focal hemorrhage and 6 cm laceration on the left side of the face were separately found in three cases. Considering highly fatal effects of strychnine and its potential suicidal use, it should be strictly and severely prohibited and watched out for its misuse. On the other hand, the analytical methods used, indicated their reliable, simple, specific and sensible application in forensic and clinical investigations.
Keywords
Fatal ingestion
GC-MS
Solid Phase Extraction
Strychnine
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Trends in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies
Volume 3, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
13
September 2017
Pages 209-214