The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine

A 49-year old man was found dead at home next to a glass containing a dried, white, crystalline substance and near a bag containing pills with the imprint XANAX, the trade name of alprazolam. A comprehensive screening of material collected during the autopsy revealed the presence of etizolam and caf...

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Autores principales: Kolbe, V., Rentsch, D., Boy, D., Schmidt, B., Kegler, R., Büttner, A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020
Materias:
Case Report
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7417405/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32607751
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02352-7
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author Kolbe, V.
Rentsch, D.
Boy, D.
Schmidt, B.
Kegler, R.
Büttner, A.
author_facet Kolbe, V.
Rentsch, D.
Boy, D.
Schmidt, B.
Kegler, R.
Büttner, A.
author_sort Kolbe, V.
collection PubMed
description A 49-year old man was found dead at home next to a glass containing a dried, white, crystalline substance and near a bag containing pills with the imprint XANAX, the trade name of alprazolam. A comprehensive screening of material collected during the autopsy revealed the presence of etizolam and caffeine in lethal concentrations (0.77 μg/mL and 190 μg/mL) but no trace of alprazolam. Benzodiazepine analogue etizolam is rarely prescribed in Germany, and as a result there are not many reports about fatal cases. It has anxiolytic, hypnotic, sedative and muscle-relaxant properties and is used for the short-term treatment of anxiety and panic attacks. The purine alkaloid caffeine, conversely, is the most widely used central nervous system stimulant. The following report outlines potentially the first reported case of a lethal combination of the downer etizolam and the upper caffeine in medical literature.
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spelling pubmed-74174052020-08-17 The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine Kolbe, V. Rentsch, D. Boy, D. Schmidt, B. Kegler, R. Büttner, A. Int J Legal Med Case Report A 49-year old man was found dead at home next to a glass containing a dried, white, crystalline substance and near a bag containing pills with the imprint XANAX, the trade name of alprazolam. A comprehensive screening of material collected during the autopsy revealed the presence of etizolam and caffeine in lethal concentrations (0.77 μg/mL and 190 μg/mL) but no trace of alprazolam. Benzodiazepine analogue etizolam is rarely prescribed in Germany, and as a result there are not many reports about fatal cases. It has anxiolytic, hypnotic, sedative and muscle-relaxant properties and is used for the short-term treatment of anxiety and panic attacks. The purine alkaloid caffeine, conversely, is the most widely used central nervous system stimulant. The following report outlines potentially the first reported case of a lethal combination of the downer etizolam and the upper caffeine in medical literature. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020-06-30 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC7417405/ /pubmed/32607751 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02352-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Case Report
Kolbe, V.
Rentsch, D.
Boy, D.
Schmidt, B.
Kegler, R.
Büttner, A.
The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine
title The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine
title_full The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine
title_fullStr The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine
title_full_unstemmed The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine
title_short The adulterated XANAX pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine
title_sort adulterated xanax pill: a fatal intoxication with etizolam and caffeine
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7417405/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32607751
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02352-7
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