Evaluation of alcohol concentrations in samples referred to the forensic Laboratory in Baghdad

Background Detection of alcohol in postmortem blood and body fluids is of extreme importance in medico-legal investigation as it may affect and change the decision of the court in legal hearing. It can be a cause death or sharing a role in different modes of death. Objectives To evaluate the problem of alcohol intake in general and its relation to age,sex and its contribution in different causes of death. Method A prospective study within 6 month period on postmortem blood samples referred to the lab. For detection and measurement of alcohol. Five to 10 ml of blood of each sample was tested using Head Space GC with flame ionization detector (FID) from Agilent 7890A. Result In general traumatic death was predominant among all victims.From total 1275, only 112 (8.8%) sample were positive. Males were more than 5 times than females. There was a significant relation of alcohol intake with traumatic causes of death, yet only in 13 victims the concentration was fatal. Conclusion Alcohol drinking is a minor problem as it was detected in a small group of all cases yet its association with traumatic death was significantly higher than natural death and its consumption was more than 5 times in males. Only in limited number of cases the concentration was fatal.