Do Biomarkers Improve the Accuracy of Alcohol Screening in Acutely Injured Adults?
Administration of self-report questionnaires is recommended for the detection of unhealthy alcohol use in acutely injured patients; however, it may lead to false negatives if there is underreporting. To assess whether alcohol biomarkers added accuracy to questionnaire-based alcohol screening in injured patients, 1233 acutely injured adults presenting to a German teaching hospital completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) to assess the presence of unhealthy alcohol use.* Sixteen percent of all subjects (20% of men and 10% of women) had unhealthy alcohol use. Area-under-the-curve (AUC) analysis was used to compare the accuracy of the AUDIT with gamma-glutamyl-transferase (GGT), carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and the AUDIT plus all 3 biomarkers for detecting unhealthy alcohol use. An AUC of 1.0 would indicate a perfect test and 0.5 would be a test no better than chance.
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