Published: Journal of Analytical Toxicology, Volume 20, Number 2, March/April 1996, pp. 134-138.
| Case Report: |
Analytical Findings in a Suicide Involving Sodium
Azide
Pierre Marquet, Sophie Clément, Hayat Lotfi, Marie-France Dreyfuss,
Jean Debord, Daniel Dumont, and Gérard Lachâtre
A 47-year-old laboratory assistant ingested approximately 9 g
of sodium azide powder and died 4 h later at a hospital. A high-performance
liquid chromatographic method using diode-array detection has been developed
for the determination of an azide benzoyl derivative in blood (after a simple
deproteinization) and in several tissues (after homogenization in a neutral
buffer and deproteinization of the supernatant). The blood concentration in
this case was lower than those previously published. The highest azide concentration
was found in lung tissue. A complete toxicological screening revealed the presence
of cyanide in blood, which has been previously reported twice, but for the first
time, it was confirmed by mass spectrometry. Whether the production of cyanide
in the presence of azide took place in vivo or postmortem remains unknown; the
nature of the metabolic pathway involved also remains unknown.
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