Carbohydrate‐Deficient Transferrin in Alcohol and Nonalcohol Abusers with Liver Disease

Abstract

Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) has been demonstrated to be a marker of prolonged heavy alcohol consumption. We compared this marker with gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT) and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) in alcohol and nonalcohol abusers with liver disease. Our results confirm that the sensitivity of CDT in alcoholics is high, although lower than that of GGT and MCV; however, the specificity of CDT was higher than that of the other two markers. This finding supports the notion that CDT is only partially influenced by the presence of liver damage, whereas increases of GGT and MCV are greatly affected by several factors, including liver damage and drugs. Moreover, we observed that the sensitivity and the specificity of CDT were greater than those of GGT and MCV in younger drinkers.

Carbohydrate Deficient Transferrin in Abstaining Patients With End-Stage Liver Disease

“…For example, one study found CDT levels elevated in early alcoholic liver disease but low levels of CDT in the advanced stages of alcoholic liver disease (Niemela, 1995). In contrast, another study found nearly 30% of patients with severe liver disease, but not drinking alcohol, had positively elevated CDT values compared to only 3% of non-drinking controls without liver disease (Meregalli, 1995). Clinical assessments and definitions of serious liver disease may be subjective.…”

“…The %CDT, used in this study, reports the CDT as a percentage of the total transferrin which would be preferable and more accurate in these cases as it takes into account the transferrin status. Some of the prior studies of CDT and liver disease did not use the %CDT and had equivocal results (Niemela, 1995, Meregalli, 1995.…”

Dose Response of Laboratory Markers to Alcohol Consumption in a General Population

“…False positive results for CDT can be caused by an inborn error of glycoprotein metabolism, pregnancy, genetic D-variant of transferrin, and severe liver diseases (1,4,9). On the other hand, increased GGT values have been reported in response to most hepatobiliary disorders, obesity, diabetes, and hypertriglyceridemia (8,(10)(11)(12)(13).…”

Should we use carbohydrate deficient transferrin as a marker for alcohol abusers?

“…Although CDT is usually unaffected by the presence of liver disease, false-positive results have been reported in primary biliary cirrhosis and in patients with severe non-alcohol-related hepatic failure (72,73,74). Complementary methodologies have been employed to reduce the number of CDT falsepositives.…”