ArticleDrug testing and analysis2014
Drug concentrations in post-mortem femoral blood compared with therapeutic concentrations in plasma.
Article in Drug testing and analysis, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 114 citations in OpenAlex.
- Therapeutic Concentrations of Metformin: A Systematic Review.Clinical pharmacokinetics · 2016Pooled it
- Anomaly detection as a tool for identifying cases of interest in postmortem toxicology.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Antidepressant metabolite concentrations and metabolite-to-parent drug ratios in postmortem femoral blood.Journal of analytical toxicology · 2026Article
- The role of psychotropic medication, alcohol, illicit drugs, and suicidal intention in fatal motor vehicle accidents involving drivers with psychotic disorders.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- Decomposition and medicolegal autopsy in geriatric in‑home non‑traumatic deaths: histopathological findings and a public health perspective.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- What Is the Appropriate Sample Size in Human Cadaveric Studies? A Quantitative Review of 770 Articles.Clinical anatomy (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Review
- Mood disorders and suicide: pilot study on postmortem toxicologic evidence and adherence to psychiatric therapy by determining blood levels of medications.International journal of legal medicine · 2025Article
- Difficulties associated with the interpretation of postmortem toxicology.Journal of analytical toxicology · 2024Article
- Fatal Intoxications with Zopiclone-A Cause for Concern?Drug safety · 2024Article
- Miniature mass spectrometer-based point-of-care assay for quantification of metformin and sitagliptin in human blood and urine.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2024Article
- Distribution of quetiapine between serum and whole blood in therapeutic drug-monitoring specimens.Journal of analytical toxicology · 2024Article
- Article
- Quantification of 108 illicit drugs and metabolites in bile matrix by LC-MS/MS for the toxicological testing of sudden death cases.Archives of toxicology · 2024Article
- Recommended dosages of analgesic and sedative drugs in intensive care result in a low incidence of potentially toxic blood concentrations.Upsala journal of medical sciences · 2024Article
- Fatal concentrations of antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs in postmortem femoral blood.Journal of analytical toxicology · 2023Article
- Post-mortem oxycodone blood concentrations of hospitalized cancer and surgery patients compared with fatal poisonings.International journal of legal medicine · 2022Article
- Sudden cardiac death after alcohol intake: classification and autopsy findings.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Comparison of serum and whole blood concentrations in quetiapine overdose cases.Forensic toxicology · 2022Article
- The blood-to-plasma ratio and predicted GABAForensic toxicology · 2022Article
- Postmortem forensic toxicology cases: A retrospective review from Milan, Italy.Journal of forensic sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Therapeutic drug concentrations measured in plasma are of limited value as reference intervals for interpretation in post-mortem (PM) toxicology. In this study, drug concentration distributions were studied in PM femoral venous blood from 57 903 Finnish autopsy cases representing all causes of death during an 11-year period. Cause-of-death information was obtained from death certificates issued by forensic pathologists. Median, mean, and upper percentile (90th, 95th, 97.5th) concentrations were calculated for 129 drugs. To illustrate how PM median concentrations relate to established therapeutic ranges in plasma, a PM blood/plasma relationship was calculated for each drug. Males represented 75% of the subjects and showed a lower median age (55 yrs) than females (59 yrs). In 43% of these cases, blood alcohol concentration was higher than 0.2‰, and the median was 1.8‰. Sixty-one (47%) of the 129 drugs showed a PM blood/plasma relationship of 1. For 22 drugs (17%), the relationship was <1, and for 46 drugs (35%), the relationship was >1. No marked correlation was found between the PM blood/plasma relationship and the volume of distribution (Vd ). For 36 drugs, more than 10% of cases were fatal poisonings attributed to this drug as the main finding. These drug concentration distributions based on a large database provide a helpful reference not only to forensic toxicologists and pathologists but also to clinical pharmacologists in charge of interpreting drug concentrations in PM cases.
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