Assessing the suitability of vitreous humor as a sample for toxicological analysis – A prospective study.

The incidence of poisoning and substance abuse have been steadily rising in India over the last few decades. Accurate diagnosis of poisoning is essential, both in the living as well as in the dead, for therapeutic and medicolegal purposes respectively. Poisons are generally detected in body fluids such as urine, blood, or gastric lavage during life, while they are detected in the contents of stomach, bowel and the viscera, besides urine and vomitus, after death. In a dead body, one of the better samples to complement blood is vitreous humor, because it is less likely to degrade quickly, and is fairly easy to collect at autopsy. In this study, an attempt has been made to assess the role of vitreous humor as a suitable sample for toxicological analysis in the detection of all kinds of poisoning after death. The study was done on alleged cases of poisoning subjected to medicolegal autopsy at the mortuary of Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh. Attempt was also made to corelate the vitreous humor findings with that of the official report from the Chemical Examiner's Laboratory at the state or central level.