[Forensic toxicological application of TOXI-LAB screening for biological specimens in autopsy cases and emergency cares].

Using the TOXI-LAB drug detection system, emergency toxicological screening was performed in autopsy cases and emergency cares. In 280 autopsy cases (male 182 cases 65%, female 98 cases 35%), drug positive cases were 28 cases of male (15%) and 24 cases of female (24%). The age groups which showed higher rate of drug positive cases were 10s-40s in male (approximately 20%) and 20s in female (67%). In the 238 cases of emergency care (male 129 cases 54%, female 104 cases 44%, unknown 5 cases 2%), drugs were positive in 29 cases of male (22%) and 32 cases of female (30%). The age groups which showed relatively higher rate of drug positive cases were 40s in male (64%), 20s (71%) and 30s (89%) in female. Forty-four different kinds of drugs were detected in TOXI-LAB positive cases, in which the psychotropic drugs and the sedative-hypnotic drugs amounted to approximately 70%. Methamphetamine and amphetamine, which were the main abused drugs showing a socially important problem, were detected in total 15 cases. TOXI-LAB was based on thin-layer chromatography (TLC); however, from the extraction to development, coloration and detection have been accelerated (about 50 min) and simplified. In order to perform the forensic toxicological practice in Japan, it becomes more useful that TOXI-LAB is used in autopsy cases and emergency cares, if the drugs, which have caused poisoning cares in Japan, are added to TOXI-LAB. The present study describes the advantage and problem of TOXI-LAB drug detection system through demonstrating the practical cases of autopsy cases and emergency cares.