Biochemistry 3386B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Metabolic Acidosis, Alcohol Dehydrogenase, Gas Chromatography
27 Apr 2013
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Purpose: to detect, identify and possibly measure, in various biological fluids, drugs and poisons which may or may not be suspected to be present. Inpatients (icu): patients in a coma (medical or drug induced) Induced comas barbituates: in brain dead organ donor, in children with epileptic seizures. Analytical approach: tests for specific drugs or poisons (eg. drugs of abuse) when clinical information points directly to them, general analyses of all drugs or poisons when information is limited. Contains parent drug and some metabolites (liver is consistently working to metabolize) Analysis rather involved because there are large amounts of lipids and proteins (making it hard for chromatography) Drugs can be present in low concentrations. There can be a very narrow detection time. Cannot measure the level of intoxication (not quantitative) Indicates what drugs have been taken, not when (can"t back calculate: accumulated over a varying amount of time, can give a ballpark estimate .
