Jason H Sklerov | PubMed Health

PubMed2006

Tizanidine distribution in a postmortem case.

The case of a 57-year-old white female who was found deceased at home by her husband is presented. A suicide note was found at the scene. No remarkable findings were observed at autopsy. Comprehensive toxicological analysis of the heart blood identified ethanol (0.16 g/dL), diazepam (1.1 mg/L), and tizanidine (2.3 mg/L). Blood concentrations of tizanidine following therapeutic use do not exceed 0.025 mg/L. The medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was combined ethanol and multiple drug intoxication, and the manner of death was suicide.

Adrenergic alpha-Agonists↗

PubMed2006

Two cases of fatal amlodipine overdose.

Two fatal overdoses of the calcium channel blocker amlodipine are described. Postmortem samples were screened for volatiles and therapeutic and abused drugs. Amlodipine was measured by liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure photoionization-mass spectrometry. The heart blood amlodipine concentrations for the two cases were 2.4 and 0.95 mg/L, and amlodipine was quantified in all other tissues. In the first case, venlafaxine and norvenlafaxine were also found, and the angiotensin receptor antagonist olmesartan was tentatively identified. The concentrations of amlodipine are compared with previously reported fatal and nonfatal overdoses. The medical examiners ruled in both cases that the manner of death was suicide and the causes of death were mixed drug intoxication and amlodipine intoxication.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

A general screening and confirmation approach to the analysis of designer tryptamines and phenethylamines in blood and urine using GC-EI-MS and HPLC-electrospray-MS.

Recent additions of designer tryptamines and phenethylamines to the Drug Enforcement Administration's schedule of controlled substances necessitate analytical procedures for their detection and quantitation. As specific immunoassays are not currently available and cross-reactivities with existing assays are unknown, a screening method based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was developed. The method was capable of measuring the pentafluoropropionic derivatives of a-methyltryptamine (AMT), N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxy-beta-phenethylamine (2CB), N,N-dipropyltryptamine (DPT), 2,5-dimethyl-4-N-propylthio-beta-phenethylamine (2C-T-7), and 5-methoxy-N,N-diisopropyltryptamine (5-MeO-DiPT). Separation was optimized to allow tentative identification of metabolites, which display common electron impact ionization fragmentation patterns. The screening method gave limits of detection between 5 and 10 ng/mL and demonstrated linearity between 50 and 1000 ng/mL. The method was successfully applied to blood and urine samples in suspected AMT intoxications. Confirmation of 5-MeO-DiPT in one of the subjects' urine was achieved using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Quantitation by selected ion monitoring (SIM) yielded a urinary concentration of 229 ng/mL. The method was linear from 25 to 1500 ng/mL with a correlation coefficient of 0.995. The limit of detection was 5 ng/mL in urine on the LC-MS. Two additional peaks were observed and presumed to be metabolic products reported previously as 5-methoxy-N-isopropyltryptamine (5-MeO-iPT) and 5-methoxy-N,N-diisopropyltryptamine-N'-oxide (5-MeO-DiPT-N-oxide).

5-Methoxytryptamine↗