4 Discussion
4.4 Application
There are many difficulties in traditional calibrating methods used in entomotoxicology cases, such as no correlation between the concentration in tested maggots and corpse tissue, the high variation of drug among tested maggots, high variation among tested maggots from different sampling site (Tracqui et al., 2004).
Many reasons will make the results hard to be reproduced, such as the post-mortem drug redistribution, low constancy of drug/toxin existed in a human body and the unclear pharmacokinetics in maggots (Tracqui et al., 2004). For instance, the investigator collected the samples from many different sites but did not analyze them separately, it will be difficult to clarify the relation of concentration between maggots and human bodies; or because of some reasons, investigator did not analyze the
samples immediately, which may lead to the degradation of drug compound.
In order to avoid these problems, we introduce this new concept, which we do not have to directly detect the drug/toxin concentration within the maggots’ body.
Because the samples used in traditional entomotoxicological analysis are not suitable to use in mPMI estimation due to the sample preservation method (which the low temperature usually cannot fix the larval length from shrinking). As the consequence, additional samples will be needed. However, we knew the variance of drug concentrations among larvae is high. It may mislead us to a wrong calibration result.
This alternative method can response to the effecting level for each larva, and the larvae still can be used in any mPMI estimation, which prevents us from getting wrong conclusion due to the high variation of drug/toxin concentrations among different larvae.
Unfortunately, since the prediction results of 3rd instar larvae may not provide enough accuracy, so far, the application of our new concept was mainly restricted in using in the calibration of 2nd instar larvae. We suggest this new concept can be applied with the traditional methods as an additional evidence. For now, we do not recommend investigator to apply this new concept for calibrating 3rd instar larvae, until it was refined after finding a more suitable target structure (e.g.
cephalao-pharyngeal skeleton).
53
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Appendix
Appendix I Abbreviation of characters
D Distance between two posterior spiracles
A Area of spiracle
DISA Distance from the inner apex of upper slit to the inner apex of lower slit
DOSA Distance from the outer apex of upper slit to the inner apex of lower slit
L Length of spiracle
LLS Length of lower slit
LMS Length of middle slit
W Width
WB Width of peritreme broken