CARBOHYDRATE-DEFICIENT TRANSFERRIN (CDT) IN SERUM AS A POSSIBLE INDICATOR OF HEAVY DRINKING IN YOUNG UNIVERSITY-STUDENTS

Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) in serum was studied as a possible marker of heavy drinking in a sample of 187 female and 102 male lst year university students from Finland. CDT was measured by a new radioimmunoassay (Pharmacia CDT RIA). Alcohol consumption was measured on a quantity-frequency scale. For female students CDT was 18.2 +/- 0.45 units/liter (mean +/-SEM) and for male students 13.3 +/- 0.48 units/liter. 9.6% of female students and 7.8% of male students had elevated CDT with a cutoff level of 26 units/liter for females and 20 units/liter for males. The correlation between CDT and reported alcohol consumption was 0.30 (p < 0.001) for females and 0.25 (p = 0.014) for males. Those reporting a consumption of at least 10 kg of pure ethanol per year were considered as heavy drinkers (3.7% of females and 22.5% of males). In female students the average CDT of heavy drinkers did not differ significantly from that of social drinkers but in teetotalers CDT was significantly (p < 0.03) lower than in female alcohol users. In male students the average CDT of heavy drinkers was higher than the average of social drinkers (p < 0.1) and significantly higher than the average of teetotalers (p < 0.001). In the detection of heavy drinking among male students elevated CDT had a specificity of 96.2% and a sensitivity of 21.7%. None of the seven heavy drinking female students had an elevated CDT. As compared with the other laboratory markers of alcoholism (gamma glutamyltransferase, mean corpuscular volume, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and beta-hexosaminidase), which in this student population have been proven to be unspecific indicators of heaving drinking, CDT had a better correlation to reported drinking.