title: Towards evidence-based emergency medicine: best BETs from the Manchester Royal Infirmary. BET 1: Can biological markers predict alcohol withdrawal syndrome?
abstract: A short-cut review of the literature was carried out to establish whether biological markers (namely carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) and mean corpuscular volume (MCV)) could reliably predict patients at risk of developing alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Using the below outlined search method and after exclusion of the non-relevant papers, five papers were found to be relevant to the specific question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these are shown in table 1. The clinical bottom line is that CDT/GGT/MCV are not reliable enough as stand-alone markers to predict alcohol withdrawal syndrome in chronic alcohol abusers.
authors.affiliation: Manchester Royal Infirmary.
authors.forename: Neal
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Larkman
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood*; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000592:standards*; D004909:Erythrocyte Indices; D000431:Ethanol / Q000009:adverse effects*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D013375:Substance Withdrawal Syndrome / Q000097:blood*; D014168:Transferrin / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000032:analysis; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D014168:Transferrin; C056759:carbohydrate-deficient transferrin; D000431:Ethanol; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase
keywords: emergency department