Om. Lesch et al., ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE - IS CARBOHYDRATE-DEFICIENT TRANSFERRIN A MARKER FOR ALCOHOL INTAKE, Alcohol and alcoholism, 31(3), 1996, pp. 257-264
We investigated %CDT (carbohydrate-deficient transferrin) in 92 ethano
l-intoxicated alcohol-dependent patients after consecutive admission t
o hospital and followed them for 28 days under controlled conditions.
At admission, 63% (58 patients) showed elevated CDT (>2.5%) and 34 pat
ients (37%) had normal CDT levels (<2.5%). No correlation of the %CDT
values to alcohol-related disabilities, severity of the withdrawal syn
drome, alcohol-drinking pattern before admission, or several other fac
tors was found. The sensitivity of GGT (gamma-glutamyl transferase) wa
s 58% for the same group of patients. Levels of %CDT decreased during
the 28 days following abstinence, whereby we could separate four stati
stically different groups of 'CDT decrease'. In two of these groups, c
omprising most of the cases studied, normal %CDT levels were reached a
fter 14 days of abstinence. Those patients with %CDT levels exceeding
the upper normal level after 14 days of sobriety, showed a decrease du
ring the following 14 days to levels of 2.55-2.61%.