Das BKL, Lamsal M, Pradhan B, Shakya DR, Bhattarai NR, Baral N
Abstract
Alcohol consumption is a major health problem in Nepal leading to both serious morbidity and mortality. Alcohol abusers may exhibit several clinical and biochemical change. A case-control study was conducted to evaluate the biochemical changes and determine the diagnostic efficacy of these biochemical parameters in alcohol dependence. A total of 100 alcohol dependence subjects diagnosed by psychiatrist using ICD-10 and screening tool AUDIT as case and 100 healthy non-alcoholics as control were included in the study. Clinical parameters were recorded and biochemical parameters including hemoglobin, MCV, glucose, urea, creatinine, uric acid, cholesterol and liver function parameters were measured. After approval from IERB, BPKIHS consent was obtained from participants of both groups. An independent t-test was used to compare the parametric data and Mann-Whitney U test for the non-parametric data. Chi-square test (χ2) was for the categorical data. Receiving operating characteristics (ROC) curve was used to find the diagnostics performance of parameters. Data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20. Statistical significance is considered at p≤0.05. Alcohol dependence had significant low level of weight, BMI, hemoglobin, total protein, albumin, urea and creatinine and high level of MCV and liver enzyme activities (γ-GT, AST, ALT, AST/ALT ratio and alkaline phosphatase) compared to control (P<0.001). γ-GT had the highest diagnostic efficacy followed by AST, MCV, AST/ALT ratio and ALT as marker of alcohol dependence. Some of biochemical results in conjunction with the clinical history would be useful in diagnosing and management of alcohol related disorders.
Keywords: Alcoholism, Liver Enzymes, Analytical Systems