In a Case of Death Involving Steroids, Hair Testing is More Informative than Blood or Urine Testing

Abstract

A 59-year-old male was found dead at home, with two empty vials of an oily preparation obtained from a manufacturer from East Europe. There was no label on the vial. The subject was a former weightlifter, also known as an anabolic steroids abuser. The local prosecutor ordered a body examination, which was unremarkable, and allowed collecting femoral blood, urine and scalp hair (6 cm, brown). He was treated for cardiac insufficiency with quinidine. Biological specimens were submitted not only to standard toxicological analyses including a screening with liquid chromatography (LC)-quadrupole time of flight, but also to a specific LC-tandem mass spectrometry method for anabolic steroids testing. Ethanol was not found in both blood and urine. Quinidine blood concentration (791 ng/mL) was therapeutic. No drug of abuse was identified. In blood, testosterone was less that 1 ng/mL and no other steroid was identified. In urine, testosterone/epitestosterone was 1.56 and boldenone was present at a concentration of 9 ng/mL. The hair test results, performed on the whole length, demonstrated repetitive steroids abuse, including not only testosterone (140 pg/mg), testosterone propionate (605 pg/mg) and testosterone decanoate (249 pg/mg), but also boldenone (160 pg/mg), trenbolone (143 pg/mg) and metandienone (60 pg/mg). Since forensic laboratories have limited access to steroid urinary metabolite reference material due to specific regulations (to avoid testing athletes before anti-doping verifications), hair analyses seem to be the best approach to document anabolic agents abuse. Indeed, in hair, the target drug is the parent compound; in addition, when compared to blood or urine, this matrix has a much larger window of detection. The pathologist concluded cardiac insufficiency in a context involving repetitive abuse of anabolic drugs. This case indicates that more attention should be paid to anabolic steroids, in a context of sudden cardiac death.