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Specimen types , Liver

المؤلف:  Sue Jickells , Adam Negrusz (Editors)

المصدر:  Clarkes Analytical Forensic Toxicology

الجزء والصفحة:  195

2026-10-11

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Specimen types

Liver

While many tissues are collected and analysed in postmortem toxicology, liver is the most import ant. The main reasons are the large amount of tissue available; ease of collection and relative ease of sample preparation compared to other tissues. There is also a relatively large database of liver drug concentrations available in the litera ture compared to the amount of data for other tissues. Concentrations of many basic drugs are also higher in the liver compared to blood, making detection easier. For example, concentrations of the tricyclic antidepressants are roughly 10–50 times greater in the liver than the blood, partly because of the absorption of drugs from the small intestines by the hepatic portal system. Today, with more sensitive analytical methods, the majority of drugs are detected readily in the blood, and it is not necessary to rely on the liver for their detection. However, liver is an extremely valuable tissue for the analysis of drugs that undergo postmortem redistribution because concentrations in the liver are relatively stable after death. As a result of the increased stability of drug concentrations in liver, analysis of this tissue can be a valuable aid in the interpretation of postmortem toxicology results. Liver concentrations can fall slightly after death through diffusion, although this effect is quantitatively minor. It has also been demonstrated that some local increases in drug concentration can occur because of postmortem diffusion of drugs from the stomach. The only major disadvantage of the liver as a specimen is that it tends to be fatty and can putrefy faster than blood. It is therefore important that analytical methods incorporate some type of clean-up step, and are robust enough to minimise the matrix effect of the tissue.