Epidemiology of alcohol-related unintentional drowning: is post-mortem ethanol production a real challenge?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Post-mortem (PM) ethanol production may hamper the interpretation of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in victims of drowning. Different exclusion criteria (e.g. cases with low BAC or with protracted interval between death and toxicological analysis) have been proposed with no factual figures to reduce the potential bias due to PM ethanol production when examining the prevalence rates for alcohol-related drowning. The aim of this study is to verify the extent to which PM alcohol production may affect the accuracy of studies on drowning and alcohol.

Findings

Unintentional fatal drowning cases (n = 967) for which a full medico-legal autopsy and toxicological analysis was performed, in Finland, from 2000 to 2013, and relevant variables (demographic data of the victim

SUBMITTER: Pajunen T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6211144 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature