Van Bocxlaer J, Meyer E, Clauwaert K, Lambert W, Piette M, De Leenheer A
Laboratorium voor Toxicologie, Universiteit Gent, Belgium.
J Anal Toxicol. 1996 Jan-Feb;20(1):52-4. doi: 10.1093/jat/20.1.52.
A 26-year-old black female was found dead at home. Her mouth was covered with a fluid containing chalky particles. Empty strips of Imovane (zopiclone) and an empty bottle of Fortal (pentazocine) were also found. No urine was available at autopsy. Screening of postmortem blood and stomach contents with enzyme-multiplied immunoassay technique (EMIT) detected only caffeine. Further screening using routine high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode-array detection and gas chromatography (GC) with mass spectrometric detection revealed the presence of large amounts of pentazocine in the blood and stomach contents. In the HPLC chromatogram, a second peak that was only partially resolved from the solvent front was observed. Thin-layer chromatography demonstrated the presence of zopiclone, but optimized HPLC and GC conditions had to be used for proper identification and quantitation. This case illustrates the fact that zopiclone can be easily overlooked during routine forensic screening.
一名26岁的黑人女性被发现死于家中。她的嘴上覆盖着含有白色颗粒的液体。还发现了空的佐匹克隆（Imovane）药条和空的喷他佐辛（Fortal）药瓶。尸检时未获取到尿液。采用酶倍增免疫测定技术（EMIT）对死后血液和胃内容物进行筛查，仅检测到咖啡因。使用配备二极管阵列检测的常规高效液相色谱（HPLC）和配备质谱检测的气相色谱（GC）进行进一步筛查，结果显示血液和胃内容物中存在大量喷他佐辛。在HPLC色谱图中，观察到一个仅部分从溶剂前沿分离的第二个峰。薄层色谱法证明了佐匹克隆的存在，但必须使用优化的HPLC和GC条件进行正确鉴定和定量。该案例说明了在常规法医筛查过程中佐匹克隆很容易被忽视这一事实。
