Immediate Insight: Rapid Drug Screening of Cocaine to Support Autopsy Outcomes

Hartel Paul^1,2*, O’Connell Sinead³, Boyle Ryan¹, Cassella John³ and Dowling Geraldine^3-5

¹Department of Pathology, Sligo University Hospital, Ireland
²Department of Medicine, West Virginia University School of Medicine, USA
³Department of Life Sciences, Atlantic Technological University, Ireland
⁴Department of Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Science, King’s College London, UK
⁵Department of Cameron Forensic Medical Sciences, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, UK

*Corresponding Author: Hartel Paul, Professor, Sligo University Hospital, Histology Level 4, Sligo, Ireland.

Received: September 04, 2025; Published: September 30, 2025

Abstract

Toxicology results in post mortem examinations can be critical to cause of death and have potential legal implications, for example, in road traffic or industrial accidents. Turn around time for results with conventional liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) methodology can be up to 9 months. Local use of point-of-care (POC) immunoassay testing at the time of post-mortem examination allows for results in 20 minutes. We compared immunoassay screening for cocaine and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) metabolites at autopsy and compared results with LC-MS. While THC metabolites are subject to false positives with immunoassay testing, testing for the cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine (BZG) appears wholly reliable. In the proper setting, immunoassay testing can ease the burden on reference laboratories, offer local cost savings and allow for more timely autopsy reports.

 Keywords: Immunoassay; Post-Mortem; Near-Body Drugs of Abuse; Cocaine; Tetrahydrocannabinol

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Citation

Citation: Hartel Paul., et al. “Immediate Insight: Rapid Drug Screening of Cocaine to Support Autopsy Outcomes”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 9.10 (2025): 77-81.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2025 Hartel Paul., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.