Search

Background The CDT assay used to detect chronic alcohol abuse is difficult with cirrhotic patients. This article describes the performances of several CDT assays in case of cirrhosis. The CDT-Capillarys assay by capillary zone electrophoresis was used for initial testing. Two additional methods were tested as putative confirmatory methods. Methods 110 patients with known hepatic status had their CDT measured by the Capillarys2 or alternative methods. Self-reported alcohol intake was used to assess the performances of CDT assays. Results Capillarys2 performance was lower in case of cirrhosis, many electropherograms displaying various abnormalities. We used the proper separation of the di- and tri-sialotransferrin peaks to select reliable profiles. This selection led to the classification of cirrhotic and non-cirrhotic patients in abusers and abstainers with similar performances. However, no interpretation was available for 54% of the cirrhotic patients and neither the BioRad %CDT by HPLC test, nor the Siemens N-Latex CDT kit was suitable as confirmatory methods for these samples. Conclusions An attentive profile examination is required for the validation of Capillarys CDT results of cirrhotic patients. Reliability is significantly improved when samples with an improper separation are excluded. To date, no commercial test can confirm the excluded samples.