Attempted suicide by ingestion of methoxychlor

A rare case involving an attempt to commit suicide by ingestion of a commercially available product containing methoxychlor as the active ingredient is presented. Clinical symptoms exhibited by the patient included no response to stimuli, pale skin, and profuse sweating. A serum sample collected at the time of admission to the hospital was found to contain 0.67 microg/mL of methoxychlor. The determination of methoxychlor was performed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.     

Attempted suicide in alcoholics and drug addicts.

Alcoholics who had attempted suicide differed on several demographic variables from addicts to other drugs who had attempted suicide; however; they did not differ on any psychological variable.     

Attempted suicide by ingestion of chlorpyrifos: identification in serum and gastric content by GC-FID/GC-MS

A mild case of self-poisoning with a chlorpyrifos formulation following oral ingestion is reported. A 15-year-old female went to the emergency room after the ingestion of a product from a bottle marked with a label "Poison". On admission, she was obtunded, with normal vital signs and a strong smell of solvent. Therapeutic measures included the application of decontamination procedures, oxygen, and gastric protectors. She had a good outcome with mild CNS depression and bradycardia. Two hours after ingestion, biological samples were collected in the emergency room and sent for analysis to our laboratory with instructions to investigate the presence of solvents. The serum and gastric content contained 5.3 and 9.4 microg/mL of unmetabolized chlorpyrifos, 4.6 and 6.9 microg/mL of toluene, and 2.5 and 7.9 microg/mL of butyl acetate, respectively. Small traces of other solvents and tetradifon were also detected. Toxicological analyses were negative for ethanol, other volatile solvents, and common drugs of abuse. The simultaneous determination of chlorpyrifos, toluene, and butyl acetate was performed using the combination of gas chromatography (GC)-flame ionization detection for screening analysis and GC-mass spectrometry for confirmation of the obtained results. The method provides an excellent and rapid tool for use in cases of pesticide poisonings, allowing the simultaneous detection of the pesticide and distillates in the performance of systematic toxicological analysis in forensic and clinical laboratories.