Tag: phosphatidylethanol

Objective Blood Alcohol Measures Confirm the Limitations of Questionnaires and Offer Increased Clinical Opportunities for Treating Dangerous Drinking

sarah JonasResearch Results

Patients in the Emergency Room (ER) should be blood-tested for hazardous drinking rather than evaluated by questionnaires alone, according to a new study comparing alcohol use screening methods. A sizeable minority of patients attend the ER for alcohol-related reasons (12–15% in the UK). That proportion is growing, a US study has found. The ER offers valuable opportunities to identify hazardous drinking and intervene with treatments that can help patients reduce their alcohol use. This requires efficiently and reliably screening ER patients for risky consumption. Validated methods include the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) — and its shorter version, AUDIT-C —which are among the most frequently used screening questionnaires. Another, the Timeline Followback Questionnaire (TLFB), is a retrospective self-administered survey estimating daily alcohol consumption over a specific prior period. In contrast, phosphatidylethanol (PEth), a metabolite of ethanol, is a direct and

Blood Spot Screening Shows Promise for Identifying Newborns Affected by Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

sarah JonasResearch Results

A simple screening test could help identify infants at risk of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), according to a report in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause a wide range of lifelong physical, behavioral, and cognitive disabilities, encompassed by the umbrella term FASD. Identifying babies at risk for FASD has previously relied on maternal self-reports of drinking in pregnancy; however, this can be unreliable, as women may under-report their drinking because of recall bias or fear of stigma. Recently, biological markers have been identified that can provide more objective data on prenatal alcohol exposure and supplement information from maternal self-reports. One such biomarker, phosphatidylethanol (PEth), is a direct marker of alcohol metabolism that can indicate exposure with a high level of accuracy, and can be simply measured in newborns (and their mothers) using minimally invasive methods.