Problems of Forensic Sciences 2008 Vol. 75 (LXXV) 314-325
INHALATION ANAESTHETICS IN BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL
Bogdan TOKARCZYK, Wojciech LECHOWICZ
Institute of Forensic Research, Krakow, Poland
Streszczenie
Crimes where victims are first incapacitated with volatile sleeping or anaesthetic agents are fairly untypical, but are being reported increasingly frequently. Agents used during the commission of a criminal offence of this kind have characteristics of inhalation anaesthetics. They penetrate the organism through the respiratory tract due to their volatility, and then they act on the central nervous system. They are used for general anaesthesia in medical treatment. In this work, two complementary methods have been evaluated – gas chromatography with flame ionisation detection (GC-FID) and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), developed for detection, identification and quantification of volatile organic compounds, including inhalation anaesthetics in biological material (blood, urine, internal tissue specimens) and in various industrial products (glues, cleaning liquids, aerosols, paints). Because of their high resolution, these methods can also be applied to analysis of multicomponent mixtures, consumption of which could cause poisoning. The usefulness of the developed methods for forensic purposes was demonstrated in the analysis of blood and unknown liquid samples encountered during routine expert opinion work. Poisoning with a mixture of chloroform and carbon tetrachloride and also administration of sevoflurane during an operation were confirmed.
Słowa kluczowe
Inhalation anaesthetics; Sevoflurane; Volatile substances; Identification; GC-MS; GC-FID.