M. Meregalli et al., CARBOHYDRATE-DEFICIENT TRANSFERRIN IN ALCOHOL AND NONALCOHOL ABUSERS WITH LIVER-DISEASE, Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 19(6), 1995, pp. 1525-1527
Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) has been demonstrated to be a
marker of prolonged heavy alcohol consumption. We compared this marke
r with gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT) and mean corpuscular volume
(MCV) in alcohol and nonalcohol abusers with liver disease. Our result
s confirm that the sensitivity of CDT in alcoholics is high, although
lower than that of GGT and MCV; however, the specificity of CDT was hi
gher than that of the other two markers. This finding supports the not
ion that CDT is only partially influenced by the presence of liver dam
age, whereas increases of GGT and MCV are greatly affected by several
factors, including liver damage and drugs. Moreover, we observed that
the sensitivity and the specificity of CDT were greater than those of
GGT and MCV in younger drinkers.