Degradation of Bupropion: Implications for Interpretation of Postmortem Case Data.

The interpretation of postmortem bupropion is often a challenge to the forensic toxicology community because of the instability of the parent compound. At the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (NC OCME) toxicology laboratory, one of the active metabolites, threobupropion, is used as a complementary indicator for the extent of exposure to the parent compound. Metabolite data will address postmortem normal concentrations as well as when bupropion was attributed to the cause of death.