Screening for Acidic and Neutral Drugs by High Performance Liquid Chromatography in Post-Mortem Blood*

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Abstract
A procedure for screening acidic and neutral drugs in postmortem blood is presented. The procedure, which is sensitive and specific, employs high performance liquid chromatography with a reversed-phase column and an ultraviolet detector. The volume of specimen used is 1 mL. Over 40 drugs are identifiable by this technique, including analgesics, anti-inflammatory agents, barbiturates and other hypnotic-sedatives, and anti-epileptic drugs. To date, over 500 post-mortem blood specimens have been analyzed by the authors.