著者
乗峯 絵理 宮田 勝文 石澤 不二雄 鷹巣 正則 本田 克也
出版者
日本法科学技術学会
雑誌
日本法科学技術学会誌 (ISSN:18801323)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.18, no.1, pp.65-70, 2013 (Released:2013-02-20)
参考文献数
11
被引用文献数
1

The authors have reported 4 successfully-detected cases of helium in postmortem blood by headspace-gas chromatography (HS-GC). Postmortem blood was collected into a depressurized 4-ml glass vial to prevent volatilization loss of helium. MICROPACKED-ST column (2.0 m×1.0 mm i.d., 80/100 mesh) was used as a separation column, and thermal conductivity detector was selected as a gas chromatographic detector. Argon was used as a carrier gas, and the flow rate was set at 8.3 ml/min. After 0.5 ml air was released into the vial, 0.5 ml headspace gas was manually injected to the instrument. In this analytical condition, helium was well-separated from other gases in the atmosphere. This HS-GC method was applied to real blood samples of 4 suspected cases of helium inhalation, resulting in successful detection of helium in blood in all cases.   In the case of a suicide by helium inhalation, it is generally difficult to determine the cause of death from an autopsy finding. This case report provides a practical method to obtain direct proof of helium inhalation.