title: Stability of ethanol in postmortem blood and vitreous humor in long-term refrigerated storage.
abstract: Ethanol concentrations in postmortem blood and vitreous humor samples collected at the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner Department over 5-6 years ago were reexamined to assess whether vitreous humor is a more reliable specimen for the analysis of ethanol in samples stored long term. The average change in 50-mL polypropylene tubes containing blood was 0.06 gm/dL (35% loss). On the other hand, vitreous humor samples collected in 10-mL gray-top Vacutainer tubes yielded an average change of 0.01 gm/dL (6.1% loss). This study demonstrates that vitreous humor may be a reliable matrix for ethanol analysis following prolonged refrigerated storage of the samples.
authors: Miami-Dade Medical Examiner Department, 1851 NW 10th Avenue, Miami, Florida 33136, USA.
authors: Theresa
authors: T
authors: Olsen
authors: W Lee
authors: WL
authors: Hearn
mesh_terms: D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D004355:Drug Stability; D000431:Ethanol / Q000032:analysis* / Q000097:blood*; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D006801:Humans; D012034:Refrigeration; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods*; D014822:Vitreous Body / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol