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Evaluation and review of ways to differentiate sources of ethanol in postmortem blood

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Abstract

Accurate determination of a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is an important task in forensic toxicology laboratories because of the existence of statutory limits for driving a motor vehicle and workplace alcohol testing regulations. However, making a correct interpretation of the BAC determined in postmortem (PM) specimens is complicated, owing to the possibility that ethanol was produced in the body after death by the action of various micro-organisms (e.g., Candida species) and fermentation processes. This article reviews various ways to establish the source of ethanol in PM blood, including collection and analysis of alternative specimens (e.g., bile, vitreous humor (VH), and bladder urine), the identification of non-oxidative metabolites of ethanol, ethyl glucuronide (EtG) and ethyl sulfate (EtS), the urinary metabolites of serotonin (5-HTOL/5-HIAA), and identification of n-propanol and n-butanol in blood, which are known putrefaction products. Practical utility of the various biomarkers including specificity and stability is discussed.

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  1. Zijie Lin and Hao Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, People’s Republic of China

    Zijie Lin, Hao Wang & Yulan Rao

  2. Division of Drug Research, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Alan Wayne Jones

  3. Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Public Security, Beijing, 100038, People’s Republic of China

    Fanglin Wang & Yunfeng Zhang

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  1. Zijie Lin
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  4. Fanglin Wang
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Correspondence to Yulan Rao.

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Lin, Z., Wang, H., Jones, A.W. et al. Evaluation and review of ways to differentiate sources of ethanol in postmortem blood. Int J Legal Med 134, 2081–2093 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02415-9

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