Abstract

Aims: To compare the performance of phosphatidylethanol (PEth) and carbohydratedeficient transferrin (CDT) for detecting alcohol dependence in women. Methods: The concentrations of PEth and CDT in blood of 25 alcohol-dependent women admitted to hospital for detoxification were determined. To assess diagnostic performance (sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV)), as well as to determine the optimal cut-off values of biochemical markers, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed. Results: The optimal cut-off value for PEth was 385 ng/mL. At this cut-off, the model demonstrated strong performance with sensitivity 100%, specificity 98%, PPV 86% and NPV 100%. For CDT a cut-off of 371 ng/mL yielded sensitivity 95%, specificity 100%, positive predictive value 100%, and negative predictive value 95%. Conclusions: The main findings of this study are that PEth and CDT are reliable indicators of alcohol dependence in women. The results also suggest a higher sensitivity for PEth compared with CDT.

Keywords

phosphatidylethanol, carbohydrate deficient-transferrin, performance, alcohol dependence, women