We experienced an autopsy case of a 21-year-old male Caucasian, in which the direct cause of his death was judged as subarachnoid hemorrhage. There was cerebral arteriovenous malformation, which seemed related to the subarachnoid hemorrhage. The postmortem interval was estimated to be about 2days. By our drug screening test using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, we could identify α-pyrrolidinobutiophenone (α-PBP) in his urine specimen, which led us to investigate the postmortem distribution of α-PBP in this deceased. The specimens dealt with were right heart blood, left heart blood, femoral vein blood, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, stomach contents and five solid tissues. The extraction of α-PBP and α-pyrrolidinovalerophenone (α-PVP, internal standard) was performed by a modified QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe) method, followed by the analysis by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Because this study included various kinds of human matrices, we used the standard addition method to overcome the matrix effects. The highest concentration was found in urine, followed by stomach contents, the kidney, lung, spleen, pancreas and liver. The blood concentrations were about halves of those of the solid tissues. The high concentrations of α-PBP in urine and the kidney suggest that the drug tends to be rapidly excreted into urine via the kidney after its absorption into the blood stream. The urine specimen is of the best choice for analysis. This is the first report describing the postmortem distribution of α-PBP in a human to our knowledge.
Keywords: LC–MS–MS; Matrix effect; Postmortem distribution in a human; QuEChERS method; Standard addition method; α-Pyrrolidinobutiophenone (α-PBP).
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