Carbamazepine Overdose after Psychiatric Conditions: A Case Study for Postmortem Analysis in Human Bone

Abstract

Carbamazepine is the main option used as a preventive medication to treat bipolar disorder when there is no response to lithium. Carbamazepine toxicity is defined as serum levels greater than 12 ?g/mL, with severe toxicity occurring over 40 ?g/mL, reduced to 30 ?g/mL when combined with pharmacological treatment, i.e., benzodiazepines or antidepressants. For these reasons, it is necessary to find a validated tool to determine carbamazepine levels in an autopsy to rule out suicide or to know if the death was a consequence of an adverse drug reaction (ADR), especially when only bones can be accessed. We have validated a tool to detect and quantify drug concentration in bone. Our results showed a peak for carbamazepine at minute 12 and a mass fragment of 193 m/z. This case study is the first time in the literature that carbamazepine has been detected and quantified in bone. These results demonstrate that carbamazepine can be detected in bone tissue from forensic cases, but almost more importantly, that the method proposed is valid, reliable, and trustworthy.