Applicability of an inmunoassay test for its use in post-mortem blood regarding to cocaine and opiates

摘要

Objectives: the number of deaths related to drugs of abuse makes necessary the use of tests for those cases in which a detection of the consumed drug is required. AxSYM system provides a simple, and reliable tool for the qualitative analysis of drugs and medicaments in urine and blood. Owing that this test is prepared, in the case of drugs of abuse, for urine samples, a validation becomes essential in order to use it for a different matrix than the established one. Methods: A total of 228 blood samples were obtained during autopsies by forensic doctors in those cases in which there was a suspicion of a drug-related death or when the deceased person had a history of drug abuse. All autopsies were carried out in the pathology service of the institut de medicina legal de Catalunya. Samples were processed by AxSYM analyzer immunoassay test and were compared with a qualitative GC-MS-MS analysis. Results: Sensitivity, specificity and predictive positive and negative values for cocaine were 74%, 97%, 97% and 78% respectively. For opiates were 68%, 99%, 95% a and 90% respectively. Results are only moderately related to sensibility of both drugs. The reliability of the test is supported by the reasonable agreement found with the results obtained from a highly sensitive method such as GC-MS-MS in a qualitative point of view. No other comparison or extrapolation to other biological matrixes has been achieved