Statistical analysis of toxicological data of victims of traffic accidents in Galicia (Spain)

Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is a very common behavior in our environment and a serious problem for public health. On the one hand, in 2016, 400,000 people died in the world in traffic accidents in which ethanol was involved. On the other hand, traffic accidents in which the use of drugs of abuse other than ethyl alcohol accounted for more than 160,000 deaths worldwide in 2017. The objective of this work is to carry out a review of the 710 cases of people who died in traffic accidents received at the forensic toxicology service of the Institute of Forensic Sciences of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia-Spain) over a period of 10 years (2009–2019). We performed an observational study of period prevalence, in which the following data were collected: age, sex, year, and analytical results in plasma, in the case of being positive. The data collected was subjected to statistical treatment. Of the 710 cases analyzed, 123 correspond to pedestrians and 587 to occupants of vehicles or motorcycles. A total of 77.6% of the deceased were men. At least one psychotropic substance was found in the blood of almost 40% of the victims. The most frequently found substance was ethyl alcohol, which appeared in 231 cases, more frequently in males. The second place is occupied by benzodiazepines, which appeared in 43 cases, followed by cocaine, which was detected in 25 cases. Polydrug use was found in only 44 cases, with the association of ethanol and cocaine being the most commonly found, followed by that of ethanol and benzodiazepines. Only in 5 of the cases analyzed there were 3 or more substances present. With the data obtained in this study, it is shown that in traffic accidents, the finding of different toxic or medicinal substances is frequent. Ethyl alcohol continues to be very present in road accidents (most detected substance), with the great impact that this implies. Secondly, the presence of benzodiazepines stands out, and cocaine is the third most detected toxic in this study. These results allow to obtain a profile of the substances most frequently involved in traffic accidents. Despite the surveillance, control, and information campaigns that the Spanish Government regularly carries out, the results are far from satisfactoryOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer NatureS

Determination of seven antidepressants in pericardial fluid by means of dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Although blood is often used to detect and quantify the presence of drugs, there are some instances where samples obtained from other biological matrices, like pericardial fluid (PF), are necessary since adequate blood samples may not be available. PF is an epicardial transudate, which contains plasma components that include toxicological substances making this sample useful when blood samples are not available. This fluid is a well-preserved postmortem sample and can easily be collected in larger amounts without significant contamination, compared with other body fluids. Although studies involving PF began around the 1980s, the adequacy of such fluid as a biological matrix has been poorly investigated. Antidepressants are frequently detected in postmortem samples from forensic cases. Nowadays, they constitute some of the most commonly prescribed drugs worldwide. A total of seven antidepressants (venlafaxine, mirtazapine, olanzapine, paroxetine, sertraline, fluoxetine and citalopram) were evaluated in this study. A new extraction method involving dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) is presented in which chloroform and acetonitrile are determined to be the best extraction and dispersing solvents. The experimental design was achieved using StatGraphics 18. The response surface methodology enabled us to know the optimal volume for the two solvents used in the DLLME. The detection technique used was gas chromatography–mass spectrometry with electron impact ionization as ionization source. A temperature gradient has been used and the total chromatographic separation time was 19.43 min. Validation results met the international validation guidance (Food and Drug Administration (FDA)). Under the optimal condition, the method offered good validation parameters showing a new efficient, simple, rapid and sensitive method. The analytical method was applied to 31 PF samples. Twenty-one samples were positive with concentrations between 0.19 and 8.48 µg/mL. Venlafaxine and olanzapine were the antidepressants most frequently foundS

Synthetic cathinones determination by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry after ultrasound membrane assisted extraction

The extraction time for membrane-assisted solvent extraction (MASE) when isolating synthetic cathinones from urine has been speeded up to 30 min by using ultrasounds. Separation and determination of eleven synthetic cathinones was further performed liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The ultrasound assisted MASE consisted of adjusting 5.0 mL of urine at pH 11.8 and performing the extractive process with 400 μL of n-hexane as an acceptor phase inside the polypropylene membrane under ultrasonication at room temperature. Synthetic cathinones exhibiting LogP values higher than 2.0, such as 3,4-dimethyl methcathinone, methylendioxypyrovalerone, and naphyrone), were efficiently extracted and pre-concentrated. Other synthetic cathinones (LogP between 2.0 and 0.7) were found to exhibit a lower mass transfer. The method was found to be matrix dependent, and a matrix-matched calibration was required for measurements. The achieved limits of detection (LOD) were between 0.03 (flephedrone) to 0.29 (ethylone) µg L-1, with relative standard deviations (RSDs) within the 6–14% and 7–19% ranges for intraday and inter-day assays, and intraday and inter-day analytical recoveries from 84 to 115% and 85 to 118%, respectively. The developed method was finally applied to urine samples from volunteers attending a music festivalThis work was supported by the Dirección Xeral de I + D – Xunta de Galicia Grupos de Referencia Competitiva (project number ED431C 2022/029)S