Using bone marrow matrix to analyze meprobamate for forensic toxicological purposes

Bone marrow (BM) analysis is of forensic interest for postmortem toxicological investigations where blood samples are unavailable or unusable. Due to the lack of studies, it remains difficult to interpret concentrations of xenobiotics measured in this matrix. Based on a statistical approach published previously to interpret meprobamate concentrations in bile and vitreous humor, we propose here a diagnostic test for interpretation of BM meprobamate concentrations from analysis of 99 sets of autopsy data. The mean age was 48 years (range 18–80 years, one unknown) for males and 50 years (range 19–80 years, one unknown) for females, with a male/female ratio at 0.768. A BM concentration threshold of 11.3 μg/g was found to be statistically equivalent to that of a blood meprobamate concentration threshold of 50 μg/ml in distinguishing overdose from therapeutic use. The intrinsic qualities of this diagnostic test were good with sensitivity of 0.82 and specificity of 0.92. Compared to previous tests published with the same objective on vitreous humor and bile, this study shows that BM is a useful alternative matrix to reveal meprobamate overdose when blood, vitreous humor, and bile are not available or unusable.