June 11, 2019 | News & Notices
Screening for Forensic Chemicals for the Purpose of Specifying the Causes of Intoxication and Verifying Drug-Related Crimes
Shimadzu’s New GC/MS Forensic Toxicological Database Ver.2
The text of this paragraph has been revised after publication.
Shimadzu Corporation has released version 2 of its GC/MS Forensic Toxicological Database for gas chromatograph mass spectrometers (GC/MS). Since 2010, Shimadzu has been marketing a database for the simultaneous screening of forensic chemicals such as drugs and/or toxic substances to police crime laboratories, university forensic departments. This new version includes 2210 registered compounds, more than double the number in the previous version. These compounds encompass drugs for which standard samples are hard to acquire, as well as pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals related to cases of toxicity. When used in conjunction with the ATLAS-LEXT automatic pretreatment unit, the database provides total support for everything from sample pretreatment to GC/MS analysis and data analysis.
The GC/MS Forensic Toxicological Database Ver. 2 can be used with a new method that enables the simultaneous analysis of alcohol in blood and volatile toxicants. This can be used for criminal investigations and alcohol-related investigations in autopsies. At the same time, it enables investigations in order to verify cases of intoxication and contamination by potassium cyanide and sodium azide.
Features
1. Automatic Determination of the Presence/Absence of Forensic Chemicals
The software automatically determines the presence or absence of pharmaceuticals based on the mass number and elution time of forensic chemicals registered in the database. Visual confirmation of graphs indicating the analysis results is not required, which decreases human error and enabling a more efficient workflow. The number of registered forensic chemicals has been more than doubled to accommodate many more forensic chemicals.
2. Enabling Simultaneous Investigations of Blood Alcohol and Volatile Toxicants
Shimadzu provides a method to enable the simultaneous investigation of both blood alcohol and volatile toxicants such as cyanide and azide, investigations which are indispensable in police crime labs and university forensics departments. The method eliminates difficult, time-consuming extraction, derivatization and other pretreatment processes for volatile toxicants, which shortens the investigation time.
3. Simultaneous Detection of Comprehensively Scheduled Pharmaceuticals Using GC-MS/MS
The software can now detect and estimate the structure of approximately 800 naphthoylindole-based synthetic cannabinoids and approximately 1300 cathinones comprehensively scheduled under the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Law (regulations related to ensuring the quality, effectiveness, and safety of pharmaceuticals and medical devices) using the GCMS-TQ series in MS/MS mode.
For more details, visit
GCMS Forensic Toxicological Database Ver.2