Postmortem toxicological findings of medico-legal investigations in Ardabil province (North West of Iran): A retrospective study

Background: Drug poisoning and substance abuse is one of the major causes of death in many countries including Iran. The postmortem forensic toxicology findings play an important role in design of prevention programs in the country. The aim of this study was to evaluate of all data on the epidemiological and toxicological findings in fatalities refereed to the forensic toxicology laboratory of Ardabil Legal Medicine Center (ALMC) during a six-month period. Methods: This is a retrospective study involved postmortem toxicological findings of fatal cases suspected drug or substance use/abuse which referred to ALMC in the first six-month of 2019. All biological samples (urine, stomach content, bile, and liver tissue) were analyzed by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) as screening test and confirmed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Also, the demographic data were extracted from the case files. Finally, the statistical analysis was performed by SPSS software. Results: During the study period, from 190 cases were sent to the laboratory of the ALMC; 93% were male. Most of them (39.5%) were in the age range 31-40 years. Among them, 44.2% were married. Tramadol (20.9%), methadone (16.3%) and methamphetamine (16.3%) were detected in the cases. Combination of methadone and tramadol (9.3%), methadone and methamphetamine (7%) were detected in biological samples. Phenobarbital, oxazepam, acetaminophen, lidocaine and codeine were the most frequent drugs in the cases. Conclusion: In this study, methadone and tramadol were determined as the main cause of morbidity and mortality in fatal cases in Ardabil. From this view, control planning and regulation to accessibility of these drugs should be considered.

کلیدواژه ها:

Forensic Toxicology ، Methadone ، Tramadol ، Postmortem