title: Screening of volatile substances and determination of toluene (a thinner component) in the blood and urine in emergency medical care and autopsy cases by the pulse heating method.
abstract: Screening of volatile substances was performed by pulse heating gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS) using a GS-Q column in 211 emergency medical care and 342 autopsy cases. At least 36 standard substances could be separately detected. Six kinds of volatile substances were screened in a total of 553 cases. Toluene and/or hippuric acid were detected in the blood and/or urine in respectively, 4 emergency medical care and 8 autopsy cases. There were 11 abusers (9 males and 2 females) in these 12 positive cases. The ages of the abusers ranged from 13-26 years. There was no particular pattern to the monthly frequency distribution of identification of thinner (toluene) abuse cases, which occurred throughout the year. It is believed that these data at least partly reflect the present status of thinner/glue abuse in Japan. We conclude that pulse heating GC-MS is useful in the screening and quantitative determination of volatile substances including toluene and other thinner/glue components.
authors.affiliation: Department of Legal Medicine, Kanazawa University School of Medicine, Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takayasu
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohshima
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nishigami
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ohtsuji
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kondo
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nagano