ArticleCurrent research in toxicology2023
Assessing the sensitivity and specificity of phosphatidylethanol (PEth) cutoffs to identify alcohol exposed pregnancies.
Article in Current research in toxicology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reference values for the alcohol biomarker phosphatidylethanol (PEth) in the Belgian population: Insights from a nationwide microsampling study.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2026Article
- Maternal gut and vaginal microbiota, alcohol use during pregnancy, and infant fetal alcohol spectrum disorder diagnosis in a South African cohort.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Clinical Features of Typically Developing Children with and without Prenatal Alcohol Exposure.The Journal of pediatrics · 2025Article
- Beyond the baseline: quantification of two phosphatidylethanol homologues in whole blood by LC-MS-MS and retrospective data analysis from a National Reference Laboratory.Journal of analytical toxicology · 2025Article
- Sensitivity, specificity, and discordance with self-report of nail sample testing for alcohol and cannabis.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2024Article
- Contribution of ferritin and zinc to adverse infant outcomes among pregnancies with prenatal alcohol exposure in South Africa.Reproductive toxicology (Elmsford, N.Y.) · 2024Article
- Screening of substance use in pregnancy: A Danish cross-sectional study.Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica · 2024Article
- Relationship between alcohol intake based on daily smartphone-reported consumption and PEth concentrations in healthy volunteers.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2024Article
- Article
- A physiologically-based digital twin for alcohol consumption-predicting real-life drinking responses and long-term plasma PEth.NPJ digital medicine · 2024Article
- Scoping review of assessment tools for, magnitudes of and factors associated with problem drinking in population-based studies.BMJ open · 2024Article
- Maternal risk factors for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: Distal variables.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Article
- Maternal dietary intake among alcohol-exposed pregnancies is linked to early infant physical outcomes in South Africa.Reproductive toxicology (Elmsford, N.Y.) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In the literature on alcohol use biomarkers, there has been debate as to what a valid and/or utilitarian cut off level should be for various research applications. In this manuscript, we assessed the sensitivity and specificity of multiple cutoff values for phosphatidylethanol (PEth) from bloodspots relative to self-report, the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) scores, and another alcohol use biomarker ethyl glucuronide (EtG) from fingernails in a sample of 222 pregnant women in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to assess the area under the curve (AUC) and assess PEth cutoff values of ≥2, ≥4, ≥8, ≥14, and ≥20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). The highest AUC value was attained when PEth was compared to an AUDIT score of 1 or more. Depending on the cutoff used to determine alcohol consumption, PEth identified 47%-70% of the individuals as alcohol-consuming while 62.6%-75.2% were identified by self-reported measures, and 35.6% were identified by EtG. In this sample, sensitivity and accuracy were highest at less stringent PEth cutoffs when compared to self-report, AUDIT score of 1 or more, 5 or more, 8 or more, and EtG ≥ 8 picograms per milligram (pg/mg). For research purposes, less stringent cutoffs, such as PEth ≥ 8 ng/ml, may be considered a valid, positive cutoff for identifying women who consume alcohol during pregnancy in this population. A cutoff of PEth ≥ 20 ng/ml may miss individuals who reported consuming alcohol (false negatives).
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