Tissue distribution of ibuprofen in a fatal overdose

A 26-year-old white man was found dead near his home. The decedent had had a history of ibuprofen overdose and had recently received a physician's order for 800 mg ibuprofen every 4 h for back pain. Postmortem examination was performed and was unrevealing except for heavy lungs (1,140 g combined weight) and a brownish-white granular residue in the stomach. Samples of heart blood, femoral blood, liver, brain, and gastric contents were submitted for toxicological analysis. Qualitative screening detected only the presence of ibuprofen. Quantitation of ibuprofen was performed using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet detection. The analytical column was an Econosphere C-8 column (150 mm, 4.6 mm I.D.) with 5 microns particle size preceded by a C-8 5 microns guard column. The mobile phase was 46% methanol and 54% 0.2 M acetate buffer at a flow rate of 2 ml/min. Fenoprofen was used as an internal standard at 200 mcg/ml. A linear response (r = 0.99) was achieved over a concentration range of 25-600 mcg/ml. Ibuprofen was identified and quantitated in the following tissues: heart blood (518.0 mcg/ml), femoral blood (348.3 mcg/ml), liver (942.1 mcg/g), brain (283.9 mcg/g), and gastric contents (131 mg total).