Suicide by alcohol overdose.
Alcohol is the most often detected substance in the body of a person who has committed suicide. It may be used to reduce the last instinctive hestitations to taking one's own life. Suicide is common in cancer patients. People with cancer-related depression often use alcohol as a means of coping but they very rarely use it in order to kill themselves through acute intoxication. However, a case of a cancer patient who committed suicide consuming two bottles of spirit was recently investigated and the conclusions are presented. The post-mortem cardiac blood and vitreous humor alcohol level was found to be 9.0 and 6.2 mg/ml respectively.
Michalodimitrakis
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Department of Forensic Sciences, The Units of Forensic Pathology and Toxicology, School of Medicine, University of Crete, Iraklion, Voutes GR 71409, Greece.
La Grange
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Tsatsakis
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