Abstract
Background
Many patients seeking emergency care are under the influence of alcohol, which in many cases implies a differential diagnostic problem. For this reason early objective alcohol screening is of importance not to falsely assign the medical condition to intake of alcohol and thus secure a correct medical assessment.
Objective
At two emergency departments, demonstrate the feasibility of accurate breath alcohol testing in emergency patients with different levels of cooperation.
Method
Assessment of the correlation and ratio between the venous blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and the breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) measured in adult emergency care patients. The BrAC was measured with a breathalyzer prototype based on infrared spectroscopy, which uses the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) in the exhaled air as a quality indicator.
Result
Eighty-eight patients enrolled (mean 45 years, 53 men, 35 women) performed 201 breath tests in total. For 51% of the patients intoxication from alcohol or tablets was considered to be the main reason for seeking medical care. Twenty-seven percent of the patients were found to have a BAC of <0.04 mg/g. With use of a common conversion factor of 2100:1 between BAC and BrAC an increased agreement with BAC was found when the level of pCO2 was used to estimate the end-expiratory BrAC (underestimation of 6%, r = 0.94), as compared to the BrAC measured in the expired breath (underestimation of 26%, r = 0.94). Performance of a forced or a non-forced expiration was not found to have a significant effect (p = 0.09) on the bias between the BAC and the BrAC estimated with use of the level of CO2. A variation corresponding to a BAC of 0.3 mg/g was found between two sequential breath tests, which is not considered to be of clinical significance.
Conclusion
With use of the expired pCO2 as a quality marker the BrAC can be reliably assessed in emergency care patients regardless of their cooperation, and type and length of the expiration.
You have requested "on-the-fly" machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation. Show full disclaimer
Neither ProQuest nor its licensors make any representations or warranties with respect to the translations. The translations are automatically generated "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" and are not retained in our systems. PROQUEST AND ITS LICENSORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES FOR AVAILABILITY, ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, COMPLETENESS, NON-INFRINGMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Your use of the translations is subject to all use restrictions contained in your Electronic Products License Agreement and by using the translation functionality you agree to forgo any and all claims against ProQuest or its licensors for your use of the translation functionality and any output derived there from. Hide full disclaimer
Details
1 Hök Instrument AB, Västerås, Sweden
2 Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Research and Education, Södersjukhuset, Sweden (GRID:grid.4714.6) (ISNI:0000000419370626); Section of Emergency Medicine, Södersjukhuset, Sweden (GRID:grid.416648.9) (ISNI:0000 0000 8986 2221)
3 Uppsala University, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden (GRID:grid.8993.b) (ISNI:0000000419369457); University of Adelaide, School of Nursing, Adelaide, Australia (GRID:grid.1010.0) (ISNI:0000000419367304); Uppsala University Hospital, Department of Emergency Care, Uppsala, Sweden (GRID:grid.412354.5) (ISNI:0000000123513333); Uppsala University, Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden (GRID:grid.8993.b) (ISNI:0000000419369457)
4 Hök Instrument AB, Västerås, Sweden (GRID:grid.8993.b)
5 Uppsala University, Department of Surgical Science, Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Uppsala, Sweden (GRID:grid.8993.b) (ISNI:0000000419369457)