[Cause of Death: 'Intoxication' - a Matter of the Concentration?]

Cause of Death: 'Intoxication' - a Matter of the Concentration? Abstract. Elucidation of the cause of death is one of the main reasons for medico-legal investigations. In clinical toxicology, the severity of a given poisoning is typically assessed with the blood concentration of a pharmacologically or toxicologically active compound. Such an interpretation proves to be difficult or even impossible in postmortem toxicology. Numerous biochemical and biological processes beginning immediately after death may render the calculated drug concentration unreliable. Concentrations obtained from postmortem samples do not necessarily reflect the blood concentration at the time of death. A prediction if and to what extent such postmortem changes might have occurred is still impossible for individual cases. Interpretation therefore needs to be done with care, considering case circumstances and all available information.