Wachełko Olga, Chłopaś-Konowałek Agnieszka, Zawadzki Marcin, Szpot Paweł
Institute of Toxicology Research, 45 Kasztanowa Street, Borowa 55093, Poland.
Department of Forensic Medicine, Wroclaw Medical University, 4 J. Mikulicza-Radeckiego Street, Wroclaw 50345, Poland.
J Anal Toxicol. 2021 Apr 14. doi: 10.1093/jat/bkab039.
Widespread access to the Internet has an increasing influence on how suicides are committed. On websites such as eBay® or Amazon.com® highly toxic substances including cyanides are available for purchase. In the last 5 years, a few fatal intoxications associated with Internet shopping and buying "suicide kits" have been reported. Epidemiology of intoxications reported by American Association of Poison Control Centers between 2000-2018 shows that about 10% of all exposures to cyanide were related to suicide attempts and intentional ingestion of this substance. In order to determine the cyanide concentration in four fatal intoxication cases associated with Internet shopping, a headspace gas chromatography with dual column/dual flame ionization detector (HS-GC-FID/FID) method was validated and applied to casework. The method was linear in range, from 1 to 50 µg/mL, with a coefficient of determination of 0.999 (R2). The limit of quantification was 1.0 µg/mL; the detection limit was 0.5 µg/mL. Intra- and inter-day validation precision and accuracy did not exceed 10% and 15%, respectively. Recovery and matrix effect values ranged from 94.8- 103.8% and -5.2─3.8%, respectively. The cyanide concentrations were determined in biological fluids (blood, urine, bile, vitreous humor, gastric content) and postmortem tissue samples (spleen, kidney, liver, brain). The headspace gas chromatographic method, which is routinely used in clinical and forensic toxicology to quantify ethanol with its congeners (methanol, acetone, isopropanol, n-propanol and n-butanol), can be also applied to determine cyanide in intoxication cases. The global problem of a high number of suicides each year, requires increasing and more restrictive control of highly toxic substances available online as well as caution monitoring of human exposure to cyanide. This old and well known poison is being increasingly used nowadays for suicidal purposes, therefore determination of cyanide in biological samples is still important in terms of clinical and forensic toxicology.
互联网的广泛普及对自杀方式产生了越来越大的影响。在eBay®或亚马逊网站等平台上，可以买到包括氰化物在内的剧毒物质。在过去5年里，已有几起与网购及购买“自杀工具包”相关的致命中毒事件被报道。美国毒物控制中心协会报告的2000年至2018年中毒事件流行病学显示，所有氰化物暴露事件中约10%与自杀未遂及故意摄入该物质有关。为了测定4起与网购相关的致命中毒案件中的氰化物浓度，一种配备双柱/双火焰离子化检测器的顶空气相色谱法（HS-GC-FID/FID）得到验证并应用于实际案例分析。该方法在1至50µg/mL范围内呈线性，决定系数为0.999（R2）。定量限为1.0µg/mL；检测限为0.5µg/mL。日内和日间验证的精密度和准确度分别不超过10%和15%。回收率和基质效应值分别在94.8%至103.8%和-5.2%至3.8%之间。测定了生物体液（血液、尿液、胆汁、玻璃体液、胃内容物）和死后组织样本（脾脏、肾脏、肝脏、大脑）中的氰化物浓度。顶空气相色谱法通常用于临床和法医毒理学中定量乙醇及其同系物（甲醇、丙酮、异丙醇、正丙醇和正丁醇），也可用于测定中毒案件中的氰化物。每年大量自杀这一全球性问题要求加强并更严格地管控网上可得的剧毒物质，同时谨慎监测人体对氰化物的接触情况。这种古老且广为人知的毒物如今越来越多地被用于自杀目的，因此生物样本中氰化物的测定在临床和法医毒理学方面仍然很重要。
