Suicidal Death by Nicotine Poisoning

Young Jin Jun; Hyoungjoong Kim; Sohyung Park

doi:10.7580/kjlm.2014.38.4.167

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Jun, Kim, and Park: Suicidal Death by Nicotine Poisoning

Case Report

Korean J Leg Med 2014;38(4):167-170.

Published online: 4 February 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2014.38.4.167

Suicidal Death by Nicotine Poisoning

Young Jin Jun¹, Hyoungjoong Kim², Sohyung Park^3,

¹Department of Pathology, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

²Forensic Medicine, Seoul Clinic of Korea Forensic Investigation, Seoul, Korea

³Medical Examiner's Office, National Forensic Service, Wonju, Korea

Corresponding Author Sohyung Park Medical Examiner's Office, National Forensic Service, 10 Ipchun-ro, Wonju 220-170, Korea TEL: +82-2-2600-4816 FAX: +82-2-2600-4829 E-mail: zzeva@korea.kr

Received 11 October 2014 Revised 28 October 2014 Accepted 6 November 2014

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Nicotine is a water-soluble alkaloid extracted from tobacco plants, and most frequently encountered in snuff, chewing tobacco, cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco or in a limited number of pesticides. Nicotine overdose or poisoning might be serious or fatal and lead to death; caused by cardiovascular arrest, respiratory muscle paralysis, and/or central respiratory failure due to its toxic effect. Suicide by nicotine ingestion has been rarely reported due to emetic response. We present a case of suicidal nicotine poisoning. A 56-year-old man was found dead and the postmortem examination revealed no injury or disease. We confirmed a high concentration of nicotine in the toxicological test. Through scene investigation, we determined this case as a suicidal nicotine poisoning.

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Keywords: Nicotine, Suicide, Poisoning

References

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Fig. 1.

Gastric contents shows semi-digested food material mixed with brownish fluid.

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Fig. 2.

The esophageal mucosa showed mild coagulation necrosis, and pinkish mucosal change is also observed over the entire gastric mucosa.

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