A Case of Fatal Paraquat Poisoning and a Rapid Method for Analysis of Paraquat in Biological Material

In a case of fatal paraquat poisoning, the distribution of paraquat was determined by a) the column chromatographic method developed by Tompsett, b) the ion-pairing method, c) the deproteinization method both developed by Jarvie et al, and d) the precipitation method developed by the authors. The precipitation method relies on the use of a precipitate of paraquat with Reinecke's salt to extract paraquat from biological material, and the dithionite color reaction to detect paraquat. The paraquat concentrations obtained by the precipitation method approximated to those obtained by the column chromatographic method. The results indicate that the use of the precipitation method followed by the dithionite color reaction is suitable not only for forensic practice but also emergency analysis.

Since paraquat was not detected in the gastric contents collected at autopsy, and paraquat concentrations in the organs were much higher than the concentration in the heart blood, it seems that the hemodialysis and hemoperfusion were begun too late.