A Rapid Enzymatic Method for Estimating Ethanol in Body Fluids

Abstract

Abstract Alcohol dehydrogenase is a sensitive and selective reagent for the rapid, simple estimation of ethanol in body fluids. Serum need not be first deproteinized, and losses encountered in distillation procedures are precluded. The difference between the absorbance (at 340 nm) of sample and reagent blank gives the ethanol content of the specimen directly after a 5 to 10 min reaction. The standard deviation of the method is 3.6 µg/100 ml and the coefficient of variation is 1.8%. Recovery of ethanol is best by the present method, as compared with gas chromatography or distillation-dichromate oxidation, for alcohol concentrations of less than 0.1 g/100 ml