Non-oxidative ethanol metabolites as a measure of alcohol intake

作者：Maenhout Thomas M; De Buyzere Marc L; Delanghe Joris R^*

来源：Clinica Chimica Acta, 2013, 415: 322-329.

DOI：10.1016/j.cca.2012.11.014

• Alcoholism
• Ethyl glucuronide
• Ethyl sulfate
• Fatty acid ethyl esters
• Non-oxidative ethanol metabolites
• Phosphatidyl ethanol

Recent alcohol intake can be monitored by the measurement of indirect biomarkers. Elevated levels of liver enzymes (i.e. gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), alanine amino transferase (ALT) and aspartate amino transferase (AST)) in blood are commonly used in clinical practice as an indicator of alcohol-induced liver damage. With the exception of carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT), the specificity of indirect markers is only moderate because many cases of elevated levels are unrelated to alcohol consumption. Because of their intermediate half-life and tendency to accumulate in hair, non-oxidative ethanol metabolites can be used as markers with an intermediate timeframe between ethanol measurements and GGT and CDT with regard to recent alcohol consumption occurring between hours to 1 week. Additionally, these biomarkers offer a high ethanol-specificity in combination with approximately a two-fold higher sensitivity in comparison with indirect alcohol markers. In case of forensic use of direct ethanol metabolites, caution has to be taken in interpretation and pre-analytical pitfalls should be considered.

• 出版日期2013-1-16