Fatal cytisine intoxication and analysis of biological samples with LC–MS/MS

We report about a fatal cytisine intoxication in a 20-year-old man who, according to his mother, had drunken tea prepared from plant material of Laburnum anagyroides with the toxic pyridine-like alkaloid as ingredient, which exhibits pharmacological effects similar to nicotine. Using a liquid chromatographic–mass spectrometric (LC–MS) procedure cytisine was quantified in post-mortem specimens. By exclusion of other causes of death an intoxication was determined as the cause of death with respiratory failure as the pathophysiological mechanism.