Problems of Forensic Sciences 2013 Vol. 96 (XCVI) 752-764
RAPE FACILITATED BY THE ADMINISTRATION OF LIDOCAINE AND TOLUENE? CASE REPORT
Marta SUCHAN, Piotr ADAMOWICZ
Institute of Forensic Research, Kraków, Poland
Streszczenie
Blood and urine samples were collected from a 15-year old girl and submitted to the Institute of Forensic Research (IFR), on suspicion that she had been raped with the use of date-rape drugs. The materials were screened at the IFR using GC, GC-MS, HPLC and LC-MS methods for the presence of drugs that can be used to facilitate sexual assault. These analyses showed the presence of lidocaine in urine and an unknown peak in blood, which turned out to be toluene. Liquid-liquid extraction was applied to the isolation of lidocaine from the biological matrix and analysis was carried out using the LC-MS technique. The concentration of lidocaine in urine was 5.8 μg/ml; there was no lidocaine in blood at concentrations above the method’s cutoff. Toluene identification and quantification were carried out by the HS-SPME-GC-MS method. The extraction was performed with a PDMS (100 μm) fibre. The concentration of toluene in blood was 1.2 μg/ml. Due to the circumstances of the case and the fact that the blood sample was collected in a non-standard tube containing gel for serum separation, analysis of this gel was performed. It was found that the gel contained significant amounts of toluene. This paper describes issues related to both the impact of gel on the concentration of drugs in blood, as well as the blood contamination with volatile compounds. It was shown that the use of unsuitable tubes for material collection may lead to erroneous results. The interpretation of the presence of lidocaine in urine was left open.
Słowa kluczowe
Rape; Lidocaine; Toluene; SPME; Gel separator tubes