AIMS To assess the trends in the number, mortality and the nature of forensic cases involving toxicological detection of buprenorphine or methadone among toxicological investigations performed in Paris from June 1997 to June 2002. DESIGN Retrospective, 5 year study with review of premortem data, autopsy, police reports, hospital data, and post-mortem toxicological analyses. SETTING AND PART...

1.3. Statistical analysis & Expert systems in toxicological screening: 1-9 1.3.1. CLOUDS-Overlap 1-10 1.3.2. SMART scaling 1-12 1.3.3. Commonly used terms in statistical pattern recognition 1-12 1.3.3.1. Cross-validation 1-12 1.3.3.2. Classification vs. regression 1-12 1.3.3.3. Supervised vs. unsupervised methods 1-13 1.3.4. Pattern recognition techniques 1-13 1.3.5. Principle component analysi...

Male and female albino rats given different oral doses (0.75, 2.5, 5.0 and 0.25, 0.75, 1.5 mg/kg/D) of endosulfan respectively for a period of 30 days elicited signs of toxicity such as hyperexcitability, tremor, dyspnea and salivation for a brief period. At the tested dose levels, endosulfan produced no significant change in the organ body weight ratio, biochemical, histological, haematologica...

The article focuses on flaws in the actual approaches of exposure to a chemical of recipient organisms. It demonstrates the excessive use of arguments based on adverse effects and underlines the necessity to take adaptive effects seriously. Regulators are invited to rethink their inclination to the 'When in doubt, keep it out.' precautionary approach, with results in counter-productive and cost...

The case history and toxicological findings of a fatal suicidal valproic acid overdose are presented. Valproic acid concentrations were determined in body tissues and fluids by gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) following both direct extraction and the method of standards addition and quantitative fluorescence polarization immunoassay. The quantitative results obtained by the three procedures were...

We evaluated the clinical utility of an automated HPLC system (Remedi, Bio-Rad) for identification of drugs and metabolites in biological fluids. Serum or urine or both from 354 consecutive cases of poisoning were analyzed by the system and by a set of fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA, Abbott) and thin-layer chromatographic (TLC) procedures. Antidepressants and most phenothiazines we...

Ecological risk assessment (ERA) guidance recommends that field-truthing efforts proceed when modeled hazard quotients (HQs) suggest that toxicological effects are occurring to site receptors. To date, no field methods have been proposed by the regulatory community that can lead to definitive determinations of acceptable or unacceptable risk for birds and mammals, the two terrestrial classes of...

We have developed an approach to classify toxicants based upon their influence on profiles of mRNA transcripts. Changes in liver gene expression were examined after exposure of mice to 24 model treatments that fall into five well-studied toxicological categories: peroxisome proliferators, aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonists, noncoplanar polychlorinated biphenyls, inflammatory agents, and hypoxia...