title: Bedside diagnosis of alcohol intoxication with a pocket-size breath-alcohol device: sampling from unconscious subjects and specificity for ethanol.
abstract: We describe a novel mouth-cup device for sampling breath from unconscious subjects and analysis with a hand-held breath-alcohol instrument, the "Alcolmeter SD-2." This equipment was evaluated in healthy volunteers after they drank a moderate dose of alcohol. Three kinds of breath were analyzed: (a) end-expired air from a conventional mouth-tube, (b) breath sampled from the mouth-cup, and (c) air from a nasal tube supplied with the breath analyzer. The ethanol concentration in breath from the mouth-cup was slightly less than in end-expired air but significantly greater than in nasal air. Results with mouth-tube and mouth-cup correlated highly with blood-ethanol concentration as determined by gas chromatography; nasal-tube air correlated less well. The Alcolmeter responded not only to ethanol but also to methanol, 1-propanol, and 2-propanol, whereas ethylene glycol gave no response. The time-response curve for methanol was different, and this might permit differential diagnosis of methanol poisoning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University Hospital, Sweden.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Falkensson
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sörbo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001944:Breath Tests / Q000295:instrumentation*; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D000431:Ethanol / Q000032:analysis* / Q000097:blood; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol