Differences between capillary and venous blood-alcohol concentrations as a function of time after drinking, with emphasis on sampling variations in left vs right arm.

Twelve healthy men drank 0.8 g of ethanol per kilogram of body weight during 30 min after an overnight (10 h) fast. At nine exactly timed intervals (30-390 min after the start of drinking), blood was sampled through indwelling catheters in cubital veins on the left and right arms. Immediately thereafter, capillary blood was sampled from fingertips on the left and right hands. The blood ethanol concentration (BAC) was determined by headspace gas chromatography. The SD for alcohol determinations in venous blood, including the left vs right arm sampling variation, was 30 mg/L (range 8.3-83 mg/L), whereas for capillary blood the SD was 35 mg/L (range 11-60 mg/L). This difference much exceeded the purely analytical errors: SD = 2.67 mg/L for venous blood and 14.2 mg/L for fingertip blood. During the first 60 min after the subjects started to drink, capillary BAC exceeded venous BAC, the mean difference at 30 min being 136 mg/L (range 36-216 mg/L). In the postabsorptive state later than 60 min after drinking, venous BAC exceeded capillary BAC [mean difference 58 mg/L (range 0.0-170 mg/L]), the values for venous and capillary BAC crossing 37 min (range 6-77 min) after the end of drinking. Apparently, the source of blood analyzed, venous or capillary, must be considered in clinical pharmacokinetic studies of ethanol.