Toxicological analyses of the bone matrix: Successes and challenges

Abstract

This study aimed to conduct an in-depth and systematic literature review dealing with toxicological analyses on human bone tissue and focusing on the forensic toxicological and archaeotoxicological field. Several studies have focused their research on medical drugs, drugs of abuse, and trace elements on both human cadavers and skeletal remains, but a few studies tried to detect some traces of officinal plants in skeletal remains. The present paper illustrates the significant advances made in recent years in the field of bone toxicology considering all cases reported in the literature. After the literature review, the study investigated 40 articles that applied bone toxicology to both recent and ancient human remains, researching the presence of trace elements, stable isotopes, medical drugs, drugs of abuse, and active principles of medical plants. This allowed us to evaluate the distribution of skeletal remains studied around the world and throughout history, and to highlight the differences between trace elements/stable isotopes and medical drugs/drugs of abuse. Finally, this study permitted us to gather more information on molecule consumption (acute/single and/or occasional/chronic drug use) in this unconventional biological matrix, both in forensic cases and very ancient human remains, suggesting that the analytes detected in bones should be referred to occasional or chronic intake of substances.