Presence of Psychoactive Substances in Toxicological Examination of Children and Adolescents Victims of Violent Deaths in Sao Paulo: 2014-2016

Abstract

The growing use of both licit and illicit drugs by children and adolescents raises concerns on the part of society as a whole. This is because the health system is overloaded with several avoidable hospitalizations, resulting in several years of life lost in this age group, or for demanding new public health policies to combat the sale and trafficking of these drugs. The present study evaluated 47 cases of deaths due to external causes that were referred to the IML of the state of São Paulo between the years of 2014 and 2016 and analyzed the concomitance of these cases with the positivity of the toxicological test, in order to establish a relationship between the deaths and drugs most frequently encountered. The selected group consisted of 08 (17.02%) women and 39 (82.98%) men. The substances identified in the female group were ethyl alcohol (two cases-25%); trichloroethylene (two cases-25%); carbon monoxide (one case-12.5%); trichloroethylene and chloroform (one case-12.5%); cocaine and carbamate (one case-12.5%); and tricyclic antidepressant (one case-12.5%). Thirty-nine toxicological tests of male victims were evaluated, of which alcohol alone was present in 20 tests, representing a rate of 51.28%, in a blood concentration ranging from 0.5 to 4.4g/L. It was concluded that alcohol is the most commonly found substance, but trichloroethylene also has an important role.