Study of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB)‎ concentrations in postmortem blood and urine

Abstract EN

Gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) is present in blood and urine of the general population as an endogenous compound.

The published concentrations in postmortem blood ranged from 0-168 mg/L in cases with no previous history of GHB use.

Interpretation of GHB results should be carefully considered due to the wide distribution of endogenous concentrations.

The objectives of this study are to evaluate and verify the accuracy of a proposed published (50 mg/L) cut-off in 120 blood and 64 urine samples in postmortem cases selected randomly, and to identify GHB-related fatalities.

GHB was determned by gas chromatography– mass spectrometry (GC–MS) after extraction of the blood and urine in the presence of the internal standard GHB-D6.