Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) testing is now available on the Minicap capillary electrophoresis system from Sebia UK.
Designed for use in diagnostic laboratories, the assay allows biomedical scientists and clinicians to screen and monitor patients for alcohol misuse.
Patients often fail to record their alcohol intake accurately or do not report it correctly to healthcare providers.
The CDT assay is a technique for diagnosing alcoholism, allowing clinicians to provide the best course of treatment for the patient.
Transferrin is a glycoprotein present in the blood that transports iron around the body.
It is composed of a protein backbone with carbohydrate side chains attached.
Transferrin usually has between three and five side chains; however, following excessive alcohol consumption a higher proportion of the transferrin has only two side chains or less.
The levels of this CDT in the blood can be measured and used as a biomarker to monitor alcohol abuse.
CDT is unaffected by other conditions such as mild alcohol-related liver disease, fatty liver, B12/folate deficiencies or other chronic diseases.
These conditions can falsely increase gamma glutamyl-transferase (GGT) or mean corpuscular volume (MCV), the markers commonly used to diagnose alcohol misuse.
In addition, CDT gives an indication of alcohol consumption over the previous one to two weeks, whereas other markers only remain elevated for 24 - 48 hours.
The automated assay available on Minicap has a throughput of 22 samples per hour, providing a graphical presentation of test results for each sample.
