TY - JOUR
T1 - Relationship between blood alcohol concentration and carbohydrate-deficient transferrin among drivers
AU - Appenzeller, Brice M.R.
AU - Schneider, Serge
AU - Maul, Armand
AU - Wennig, Robert
N1 - Funding Information:
This work has been supported by grant SAN-02-001 from Luxembourg Ministry of Health.
PY - 2005/8/1
Y1 - 2005/8/1
N2 - Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) was quantified in 408 blood specimens, randomly selected from 1260 drivers apprehended and submitted to blood alcohol concentration (BAC) determination. The first step of the study was to observe whether a BAC based pre-evaluation was relevant for deciding to test drivers for chronic alcohol abuse. For this purpose, the diagnosis of chronic alcohol abuse was verified by CDT quantification, with a voluntary high positive cut-off fixed at 3% for high specificity. The results display a significant increase in the part of chronic alcohol abusers with respect to increasing BAC: a few alcohol abusers were present in the BAC category below 0.5 g/L, and their frequency increased to 47 and 67% when BAC was between 3 and 3.5 g/L and above 3.5 g/L, respectively. Secondly, the usefulness of the biomarker CDT in the traffic safety context was investigated by observing whether drivers with abnormally increased CDT value had also higher BAC. The average BAC was 1.32 g/L in drivers with CDT below 1%, and increased to 2.28 g/L in drivers with CDT above 3%. Statistical analysis showed evidence of a monotone increasing link between BAC and CDT (P < 0.0001). We confirmed here the relevance of BAC-based pre-evaluation before testing chronic alcohol abuse among drivers, and demonstrated that CDT is a biomarker suitable for traffic safety context, as drivers with increased CDT had significantly higher BAC.
AB - Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) was quantified in 408 blood specimens, randomly selected from 1260 drivers apprehended and submitted to blood alcohol concentration (BAC) determination. The first step of the study was to observe whether a BAC based pre-evaluation was relevant for deciding to test drivers for chronic alcohol abuse. For this purpose, the diagnosis of chronic alcohol abuse was verified by CDT quantification, with a voluntary high positive cut-off fixed at 3% for high specificity. The results display a significant increase in the part of chronic alcohol abusers with respect to increasing BAC: a few alcohol abusers were present in the BAC category below 0.5 g/L, and their frequency increased to 47 and 67% when BAC was between 3 and 3.5 g/L and above 3.5 g/L, respectively. Secondly, the usefulness of the biomarker CDT in the traffic safety context was investigated by observing whether drivers with abnormally increased CDT value had also higher BAC. The average BAC was 1.32 g/L in drivers with CDT below 1%, and increased to 2.28 g/L in drivers with CDT above 3%. Statistical analysis showed evidence of a monotone increasing link between BAC and CDT (P < 0.0001). We confirmed here the relevance of BAC-based pre-evaluation before testing chronic alcohol abuse among drivers, and demonstrated that CDT is a biomarker suitable for traffic safety context, as drivers with increased CDT had significantly higher BAC.
KW - Blood alcohol concentration
KW - Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin
KW - Chronic alcohol abuse
KW - Drunk driving
KW - Traffic safety
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=21744436079&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2005.01.017
DO - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2005.01.017
M3 - Article
C2 - 16002036
AN - SCOPUS:21744436079
SN - 0376-8716
VL - 79
SP - 261
EP - 265
JO - Drug and Alcohol Dependence
JF - Drug and Alcohol Dependence
IS - 2
ER -