Abstract: Objective To investigate the basic principles and important rules of forensic identification of adverse drug events and to accumulate basic data and to provide references for forensic identification of similar cases.Methods Thirty-three cases of adverse drug events in our forensic identification files were retrospectively reviewed,analyzed,and summarized.Results There were 27 live and 6 dead victims included in this study.Our study showed a gradually increasing numbers of adverse drug cases in forensic identification year by year with a slight female predominance(20/33 cases,60.6%).Of the 33 victims,nearly two-thirds(21/33,63.6%) were due to hospital errors including only one case of drug overdose(1/21,4.8%),whereas the rest were not related to the hospital errors.Eight cases(8/33,24.2%) were caused by illegal medical practitioners due to improper use of medication.Conclusion Investigators need to pay more attention to the characteristics and complexities of adverse drug events on a case by case basis encountered in increasing numbers of more and more such forensic identification.

Key words: adverse drug event, medical accident, forensic medicine identification