Laloup Marleen, Fernandez Maria Del Mar Ramirez, Wood Michelle, Maes Viviane, De Boeck Gert, Vanbeckevoort Yvan, Samyn Nele
Federal Public Service Justice, National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC), Section Toxicology, Vilvoordsesteenweg 98, 1120 Brussels, Belgium.
Anal Bioanal Chem. 2007 Aug;388(7):1545-56. doi: 10.1007/s00216-007-1297-9. Epub 2007 Apr 28.
Sedative agents are used to facilitate sexual assault due to their ability to render the victim passive, submissive and unable to resist. The primary pharmacological effect of the benzodiazepine tetrazepam is muscle relaxation, whereas the benzodiazepine diazepam acts on the central nervous system (CNS) exerting mainly sedation effects. Therefore, contrary to tetrazepam, diazepam is an often-abused drug, which can potentially be used as a date-rape drug. In this study, we describe the detection of low amounts of diazepam in Myolastan (Sanofi-Synthelabo S.A., Brussels, Belgium) and Epsipam (Will-Pharma, Wavre, Belgium) 50 mg tablet preparations by LC-MS-MS, GC-FID and HPLC-DAD. Considering the important forensic implication of this finding, a study was conducted with volunteers receiving a single or repeated dosage of Myolastan. Urine, hair and preserved oral fluid samples were analysed using a previously described sensitive and specific LC-MS-MS detection method allowing for the simultaneous quantification of tetrazepam, diazepam, nordiazepam, oxazepam and temazepam. This study demonstrates that diazepam can be observed in urine samples even after a single dose of Myolastan. In addition, maintaining therapy for 1 week results in the detection of both diazepam and nordiazepam in urine samples and of diazepam in the first hair segment. Importantly, comparing urine and hair samples after a single intake of diazepam versus the single and 1 week administration of Myolastan shows that the possible metabolic conversion of tetrazepam to diazepam is a more plausible explanation for the detection of diazepam in biological samples after the intake of Myolastan. As such, these results reveal that the presence of diazepam and/or nordiazepam in biological samples from alleged drug-facilitated assault cases should be interpreted with care.
镇静剂因其能使受害者变得被动、顺从且无法反抗的能力而被用于协助性侵犯。苯二氮䓬类药物替扎西泮的主要药理作用是肌肉松弛，而苯二氮䓬类药物地西泮作用于中枢神经系统（CNS），主要发挥镇静作用。因此，与替扎西泮不同，地西泮是一种经常被滥用的药物，有可能被用作约会强奸药物。在本研究中，我们描述了通过液相色谱 - 串联质谱法（LC-MS-MS）、气相色谱 - 氢火焰离子化检测器法（GC-FID）和高效液相色谱 - 二极管阵列检测器法（HPLC-DAD）检测Myolastan（赛诺菲 - 圣德拉堡制药公司，比利时布鲁塞尔）和Epsipam（威尔制药公司，比利时瓦夫尔）50毫克片剂制剂中低含量地西泮的方法。考虑到这一发现的重要法医意义，我们对接受单次或重复剂量Myolastan的志愿者进行了一项研究。使用先前描述的灵敏且特异的LC-MS-MS检测方法对尿液、毛发和保存的口腔液样本进行分析，该方法可同时定量替扎西泮、地西泮、去甲地西泮、奥沙西泮和替马西泮。本研究表明，即使单次服用Myolastan后，尿液样本中也能检测到地西泮。此外，维持治疗1周会导致尿液样本中检测到地西泮和去甲地西泮，以及在第一段毛发中检测到地西泮。重要的是，比较单次摄入地西泮与单次及1周服用Myolastan后的尿液和毛发样本表明，替扎西泮可能代谢转化为地西泮是摄入Myolastan后生物样本中检测到地西泮的更合理的解释。因此，这些结果表明，在涉嫌药物协助性侵犯案件的生物样本中存在地西泮和/或去甲地西泮时，应谨慎解释。
