Hair-Based Ethyl Glucuronide Accurately Diagnoses Excessive Alcohol Use in Cirrhosis

As a part of liver transplantation candidacy evaluation, assessment of alcohol abuse is essential, as risk for ongoing alcohol use posttransplantation is common among those with alcohol addiction. Checking levels of urine ethyl glucuronide, a byproduct of ethanol, assesses alcohol use during the previous few days only, whereas measuring ethyl glucuronide in scalp hair (hEtG) provides a diagnostic time window of several months.

To validate its use in patients with cirrhosis, researchers assessed the accuracy of hEtG in diagnosing chronic excessive alcohol use (>60 g/day) during the previous 3 months in approximately 100 patients with alcoholic cirrhosis and 40 healthy volunteers. Each patient completed a detailed alcohol use questionnaire and…