title: Comparison of endogenous GHB concentrations in blood and hair in death cases with emphasis on the post mortem interval.
abstract: Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) is an endogenous compound which has a story of clinical use and illicit abuse since the 1960's. The possibility to use a multi-sample approach for GHB evaluation, including whole blood and hair, to better characterize a forensic toxicology case and evaluate a possible causal association with the death is an exciting up-to-date issue. In addition, its post-mortem behaviour, namely regarding degradation and metabolism, has been increasingly investigated as a putative biomarker for post-mortem interval (PMI) estimation. Thus, in order to contribute to clarification of this specific aspect, whole blood and hair post-mortem GHB levels were evaluated in 32 real cases with previous information on death and autopsy data. The results obtained suggest that the PMI (until 5 days between death and sampling) influences GHB whole blood concentration, but not GHB levels in hair samples. No differences were encountered for the other parameters evaluated, including age, gender, cause of death and presence or absence of substances. This study brings new insights regarding the usefulness of GHB levels in forensic toxicology, which might be further strengthened with larger, but comparable, studies from other laboratories and institutions in the context of legal medicine.
authors: National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Porto, Portugal. andre.castro@dpinml.mj.pt.|Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal. andre.castro@dpinml.mj.pt.
authors: André L
authors: AL
authors: Castro
authors: National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Porto, Portugal.
authors: Sónia
authors: S
authors: Tarelho
authors: National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Porto, Portugal.
authors: Mário
authors: M
authors: Dias
authors: Laboratory of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Life Sciences (CNC.IBILI Research Consortium), Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
authors: Flávio
authors: F
authors: Reis
authors: National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Porto, Portugal.|Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.|Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
authors: Helena M
authors: HM
authors: Teixeira
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D006885:Hydroxybutyrates / Q000032:analysis*; D057230:Limit of Detection; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D006885:Hydroxybutyrates; C111420:4-hydroxybutyric acid
keywords: Endogenous values; Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB); Hair and whole blood samples; Post-mortem interval