title: Could trisialotransferrin be used as an additional biomarker to CDT in order to improve detection of chronic excessive alcohol intake?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin is a well-known biomarker widely used for detection of chronic excessive alcohol intake. However, under certain clinical conditions particularly frequently met amongst heavy drinkers (steatosis, fibrosis, cirrhosis…), it isn't a reliable biomarker. In this study, we tried to find additional biomarkers to CDT in order to improve detection of chronic excessive alcohol intake.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted a retrospective cohort study from December 2007 to December 2009. We focused mainly on three different groups: heavy drinking patients with active alcohol consumption (n=243), cirrhotic patients (abstinent patients and non alcoholic cirrhosis, n=44) and control group (n=85).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In our study, CDT showed a poor sensitivity for diagnosis of heavy drinking patients (around 63%, and even lower) for cirrhotic patients and patients at advanced stage of fibrosis. Combination of CDT with trisialotransferrin enabled to improve significantly sensitivity and specificity (p-value AUC ROC<0.001). When adding mean corpuscular volume and gamma-glutamyltransferase to this first combination, performances were even better (p-value<0.001). This second cluster enabled to make a statistically significant difference between cirrhotic patients with active alcohol consumption compared to abstinent cirrhotic patients and to non alcoholic cirrhotic patients (p-value<0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  From our study, trisialotransferrin seems to be a useful additional biomarker to CDT in order to improve detection of chronic excessive alcohol intake.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Clinical Chemistry, Saint-Luc University Hospital, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tamigniau
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Clinical Chemistry, Saint-Luc University Hospital, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wallemacq
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Clinical Chemistry, Saint-Luc University Hospital, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium. Electronic address: diane.maisin@uclouvain.be.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Maisin
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000378:metabolism*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000378:metabolism*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism*; D004909:Erythrocyte Indices / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014168:Transferrin / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000378:metabolism*; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D014168:Transferrin; C056759:carbohydrate-deficient transferrin; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase
keywords: Capillary electrophoresis; Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin; Cirrhosis; Fibrosis; Heavy drinking; Steatosis; Trisialotransferrin