Abstract
Measurements of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) were made on patients who presented to an accident and emergency department with acute alcohol intoxication. A correlation of r = 0.418 was noted to exist between BAC as measured by sampling saliva and blood. Blood alcohol concentrations as measured by salivary reagent strip (ALCO-SCREEN, Chem Elec.) were significantly lower (p less than 0.0001) than those determined by gas chromatography of serum. Although such reagent strips offer a rapid measurement of BAC, it is concluded that they are unreliable for the quantitative measurement of BAC in accident and emergency departments.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Gerberich S. G., Gerberich B. K., Fife D., Cicero J. J., Lilja G. P., Van Berkom L. C. Analyses of the relationship between blood alcohol and nasal breath alcohol concentrations: implications for assessment of trauma cases. J Trauma. 1989 Mar;29(3):338–343. doi: 10.1097/00005373-198903000-00010. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Holt S., Stewart I. C., Dixon J. M., Elton R. A., Taylor T. V., Little K. Alcohol and the emergency service patient. Br Med J. 1980 Sep 6;281(6241):638–640. doi: 10.1136/bmj.281.6241.638. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Jones A. W. Inter- and intra-individual variations in the saliva/blood alcohol ratio during ethanol metabolism in man. Clin Chem. 1979 Aug;25(8):1394–1398. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rutherford W. H. Diagnosis of alcohol ingestion in mild head injuries. Lancet. 1977 May 14;1(8020):1021–1023. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(77)91256-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Yates D. W., Hadfield J. M., Peters K. Alcohol consumption of patients attending two accident and emergency departments in north-west England. J R Soc Med. 1987 Aug;80(8):486–489. doi: 10.1177/014107688708000810. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]