Objectives: Aluminum phosphide (ALP) has been extensively used as an economical and effective
insecticide, rodenticide, and fumigant. The active ingredient of ALP is phosphine (PH3), the ease
availability of which can lead to mass suicidal poisoning with high mortality. Exposure to PH3
will give rise to entire damage in the human body. The magnitude of ALP poisoning and its
numerous related deaths in man with lack of entomotoxicology screening methods and quantitative
methods for this toxin prompted us to undertake this study. Aim of work: The current study aimed
to measure phosphine (PH3) concentrations by a quantifying method in postmortem (PM)
specimens (blood, lung, liver, small intestine and 1st & 6th day 3rd instar larvae of chrysomya
albiceps) from intoxicated corpses to find a correlation between the PH3 concentration in PM
specimens & larvae to help in the detection of ALP toxicity as a cause of death. Also, this study
aims to explore the effects of ALP on C. albiceps life cycle and bio morphological changes to
estimate the accurate postmortem interval (PMI). Methodology: This study reviewed 10
chemically confirmed cases were included and the effect of ALP on C. albiceps life cycle through
studying the parameters & the time duration of its different stages. Also, phosphine analysis in
both PM specimens (blood, lung, liver and small intestine) and (1st & 6th day) 3rd instar C. albiceps
larvae using GC- MS. Results: there was significant increase in means values of larval lengths and
weights were observed for most measurements at different stages which reared on ALP poisoned
tissues comparing to those of the control cases. Also, there was marked acceleration in the average
development duration of C. albiceps life cycle stages reared on the studied ALP poisoned cases
tissues as comparing to those of the control cases. On the other hand, the method described here
for the analysis of PH3 is rapid, sensitive, and free of all chromatographic interferences. This
method provides acceptable selectivity and stability for PH3 determination. The analyte was found
to be linear within the calibration range (0.2 up to 8 μg/mL). Conclusion: ALP caused acceleration
of the life cycle duration of C. albiceps and changes in the biometric diameters of its larvae. These
results can aid in estimating the time and the cause of death. According to GC- MS analysis, the
method described here presents a sensitive and selective approach for the quantification of PH3 at
accurate and reliable values within a concentration range of 0.2–8 μg/mL for forensic applications. |
