Estimation of the duration after methamphetamine injection using a pharmacokinetic model in suspects who caused fatal traffic accidents.

When the population parameters of drug pharmacokinetics in the human body system are known, the time-course of a certain drug in an individual can generally be estimated by pharmacokinetics. In the present two cases where methamphetamine abusers were suspected to have inflicted mortalities in traffic accidents, the time-elapse or duration immediately after methamphetamine injection to the time when the accidents occurred became points of contention. In each case, we estimated the time-course of blood methamphetamine after the self-administration in the suspects using a 2-compartment pharmacokinetic model with known pharmacokinetic parameters from the literatures. If the injected amount can be determined to a certain extent, it is easy to calculate the average time-elapse after injection by referring to reference values. However, there is considerable individual variability in the elimination rate based on genetic polymorphism and a considerably large error range in the estimated time-elapse results. To minimize estimation errors in such cases, we also analyzed genotype of CYP2D6, which influenced methamphetamine metabolism. Estimation based on two time-point blood samples would usefully benefit legal authorities in passing ruling sentences in cases involving similar personalities and circumstances as those involved in the present study. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Kazuo Matsubara, Masaru Asari, Manabu Suno, Toshio Awaya, Mitsuru Sugawara, Tomohiro Omura, Joe Yamamoto, Chikatoshi Maseda, Yoshikazu Tasaki, Hiroshi Shiono, Keiko Shimizu. Estimation of the duration after methamphetamine injection using a pharmacokinetic model in suspects who caused fatal traffic accidents. Legal medicine (Tokyo, Japan). 2012 Jul;14(4):191-6

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PMID: 22503241

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