The Effects of Acquisition of Postmortem Blood Specimens on Drug Levels and the Effects of Transport Conditions on Degradation of Drugs

The goals of this project are: [1] to prospectively analyze the effect, if any, that routine external acquisition of femoral blood specimens may differ from careful internal, site-specific acquisition of blood, and [2] to analyze the effect, if any, that careful preservation of specimens by freezing immediately after acquisition and shipping on dry ice to maintain a frozen state until processing may differ from refrigeration of specimens then shipping in ambient conditions. If test results indicate significant changes in drug levels, this information will be useful for evaluation of toxicology tests on postmortem blood when determining cause of manner of death. ca/ncf