A fatal overdose with colchicine

A colchicine blood concentration 250 microgram/L was determined in a 39-year-old white female 2 hours following the ingestion of an oral overdose of the drug. At death, 40 hours following ingestion, no drug was detected. Colchicine was extracted from buffered blood using dichloromethane. The evaporated extract was redissolved in 0.1 N HCl and analyzed using a high performance liquid chromatograph equipped with an octadecylsilane reversed phase column.