Detection of alcohol consumption in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis during the evaluation process for liver transplantation.

Alcoholic liver cirrhosis (ALC) is a commonly accepted indication for liver transplantation (LT). Any alcohol consumption is considered a contraindication for LT. However, the assessment of abstinence in everyday practice mostly relies on patient self-reporting, which must be considered highly unreliable. After consumption, ethanol is eliminated by alcohol dehydrogenase, with methanol accumulating in the blood. Methanol, which is known to be a sensitive and specific indicator for recent alcohol consumption, has not been used for verifying alcohol consumption in LT assessments yet. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the feasibility of using methanol testing to identify recent alcohol consumption in LT candidates during routine and short-notice appointments. We compared methanol and ethanol measurements with self-reported alcohol consumption for 41 patients with ALC during the evaluation process before they were accepted onto the waiting list. In 32 of the 92 blood samples drawn from these 41 patients during the study, a relapse was detected by the methanol test. Both the ethanol test results and the self-reported data were positive in only 3 cases. Thus, the methanol test identified 29 additional cases of alcohol consumption. Furthermore, the methanol test discovered recent alcohol consumption in 5 of 10 transplant patients when both self-reported data and ethanol test results were negative. As a part of blood alcohol analysis, the methanol test is more sensitive than self-reporting and ethanol testing for the detection of recent alcohol consumption. Also, short-notice appointments for blood alcohol analysis reveal more cases of alcohol relapse than routine, long-term appointments. The measurement of methanol as a sensitive screening test for recent alcohol consumption should be implemented both in law and in daily, routine practice. Liver Transpl 18:1310-1315, 2012. © 2012 AASLD.