Dibenzepine and its metabolites in blood, muscle, liver, vitreous body and urine from fatal poisoning.

: This paper presents a separation technique followed by spectrophotometry for the quantitative determination of dibenzepine and its main metabolites in autopsy material. The method, which has a lower detection limit of 0.5 μg/g material, was used for blood, tissue and urine from 8 cases in which dibenzepine was considered to be the only or a contributory cause of death. In addition to unchanged dibenzepine, three N-demethylated metabolites were detected and identified in the material. According to the results the material could be divided into two groups. One group, six cases, with high concentrations of total dibenzepine (dibenzepine plus metabolites), blood 23–147 μg/g, liver 255–566 μg/g, in which death was caused by dibenzepine alone or in combination with alcohol, and another group, two cases, with ten times lower total dibenzepine concentrations in blood and tissue; in this group additional factors might have contributed to death.