Poisons and Drugs Used in Homicidal Poisoning: A Systematic Review

Authors: Soltaninejad K*

DOI: 10.23880/ijfsc-16000335

Volume 8, Issue 4

Abstract

Homicidal poisoning defined as the application of toxic agents by a person to kill human beings. Historically, some conventional homicidal poisons were including arsenic, cyanide, mercury, strychnine, aconite and atropine. In general, homicidal poisonings are among the least frequently detected crimes and difficult to establish, across the world. Lack of suspicion of this type of poisoning and clinical presentations in this poisoning are often misdiagnosed as natural disease, especially if the crime is occurred in a hospital setting are the limitations for detection of homicidal poisonings. The aim of this article is to review of drugs and poisons used in recently reported homicidal poisoning cases. The results showed that the contemporary poisons and drugs used in homicidal poisonings are based in combinations of old and well-described poisons and drugs and natural or synthetic drugs and poisons from the group of organophosphorus agents, tetrodotoxin, radioactive substances and polydrug pattern of antipsychotics with antidepressants and sedativehypnotics. Forensic autopsy and postmortem histopathological and toxicological analysis have a critical role in investigation on homicidal poisoning fatal cases. The sophisticated instrumental analysis (usually using tandem mass spectrometry) can be used for toxicological analysis of trace levels of drugs and poisons in routine and alternative samples in the victims of homicidal poisoning.

Keywords: Homicidal Poisoning; Criminal Poisoning; Poison, Drug; Review

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