Clinical Information

Chronic alcoholism causes a transient change in the glycosylation pattern of transferrin where the relative amounts of disialo- and asialotransferrin (carbohydrate deficient transferrin: [CDT]) are increased over the amount of normally glycosylated tetrasialotransferrin. This recognition led to the use of CDT in serum as a marker for chronic alcohol abuse.

CDT typically normalizes within several weeks of abstinence of alcohol use. However, it is important to recognize that there are other causes of abnormal CDT levels, which include congenital disorders of glycosylation and other genetic and nongenetic causes of acute or chronic liver disease.

CDT testing alone is not recommended for general screening for alcoholism; however, when combined with other methods (ie, gamma-glutamyltransferase, mean corpuscular volume, patient self-reporting, ethylglucuronide analysis), clinicians can expect to identify the majority of patients who consume a large amount of alcohol.