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Published on: May 24, 2017
Detection of carbon monoxide poisoning that occurred before a house fire in three cases
Toru Oshima1, Kosei Yonemitsu2, Ako Sasao2
1Department of Forensic Sciences, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, Hondo 1-1-1, Akita 010-8543, Japan.
Abstract:
In our institutes, we perform a quantitative evaluation of volatile hydrocarbons in post-mortem blood in all fatal fire-related cases using headspace gas chromatography mass spectrometry. We previously reported that benzene concentrations in the blood were positively correlated with carbon monoxide-hemoglobin (CO-Hb) concentrations in fire-related deaths. Here, we present 3 cases in which benzene concentrations in the blood were not correlated with CO-Hb concentrations. A high CO-Hb concentration without a hydrocarbon component, such as benzene, indicates that the deceased inhaled carbon monoxide that was not related to the smoke from the fire. Comparing volatile hydrocarbons with CO-Hb concentrations can provide more information about the circumstances surrounding fire-related deaths. We are currently convinced that this is the best method to detect if carbon monoxide poisoning occurred before a house fire started.
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