JIST

Abstract

There is inherent rise of pesticide poisoning in India over the last decade. Organophosphorus pesticide poisoning cases has dominated the rest all types of poisoning and monocrotophos dominated the over the rest other types of Organophosphorus (OP) pesticides, e.g. malathion, parathion, methyl parathion, fenthion and methyl demeton. Unfortunately, the management is quite different for monocrotophos poisoning compared to types of OP pesticide poisoning. Hence, clinicians requires an early and prompt diagnosis of monocrotophos poisoning cases for a better outcome. Therefore, there should be a toxicological contrivance in the laboratory to delineate monocrotophos from other OP compounds. Use of p-Quinone reagent in thin layer chromatographic method has paramount significance for screening monocrotophos from rest other types of Organophosphorus pesticides. Because, the alkali hydrolysis by-product of Monocrotophos reacts selectively with p-benzoquinone to produce an amber yellow coloured compound. Nevertheless, this reagent is specific only for monocrotophos and does not react with other organophosphorus, organochlorine and carbamate insecticides. This reagent does not interfere with the constituents of viscera, e.g. amino acid, peptides, polysaccharides, etc. including vegetable constituents too. However, the sensitivity of p-benzoquinone reagent is relatively lower; because, its detection ability is limited up to 0.40 to 0.48μg of monocrotophos only. This study deals with the use of p-benzoquinone reagent in TLC applied on 144 autopsy samples of gastric-extracts from OP pesticide poisoning. We have successfully demonstrated the ability of p-benzoquinone to screen monocrotophos among other OP compounds