ReviewBiochemia medica2025
The enzymatic analysis of alcohol (ethanol) in serum and plasma with the alcohol dehydrogenase reagent: focus on intra-analytical and post-analytical aspects.
Review in Biochemia medica, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Forensic integrity of blood alcohol sampling in the emergency department, Part II: Establishing quality goals of turnaround time with Monte Carlo simulation.Biochemia medica · 2026Article
- Forensic integrity of blood alcohol sampling in the emergency department, Part I: Epidemiology and factors affecting turnaround time.Biochemia medica · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) method is commonly used to measure serum alcohol concentration (SAC) and plasma alcohol concentration (PAC) for the rapid detection of ethanol intoxication in emergency medical departments. Alcohol dehydrogenase methods are sometimes used in forensic laboratories as a preliminary screening test prior to confirmation by gas chromatographic (GC) methods. This review identifies critical factors affecting results of ADH methods of analysis including clinical reliability and forensic defensibility. Key considerations include intra-analytical factors (method chemistry, calibration, analytical performance, interferences, calibrator stability, and sample matrix effects) and post-analytical factors (measurement units, reference ranges, performance specifications, uncertainty budget, medical decision levels, legal intoxication thresholds, ADH-GC agreement, and SAC/PAC to blood alcohol concentration (BAC) conversion). The yeast ADH method demonstrates high selectivity for ethanol with no assay-specific bias, and measurement error and uncertainty meet regulatory standards. However, ADH methods are prone to interferences, particularly from lactate dehydrogenase/lactic acid (LD/LA), leading to potential false positive results. Free hemoglobin (hemolysis) is another problem with ADH methods introducing a negative bias. When results provided by hospital laboratories are interpreted in a legal context, care is needed because ethanol concentrations in plasma/serum are about 15% higher than in whole blood (range 10-20%). Although less important in clinical practice, these differences are important to consider in a forensic context. The ADH method is not inherently a forensic assay, but these limitations can be mitigated by refining laboratory procedures and standardizing the assay methodology and quality control, thus strengthening forensic reliability and boosting confidence in the analytical results.
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