False positive carbohydrate-deficient transferrin results in chronic hemodialysis patients related to the analytical methodology.

OBJECTIVES:Chronic kidney disease stage V is associated with a metabolic acidosis, a disturbance also observed in heavy alcohol consumption. Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin is considered the most accurate biomarker for identifying chronic alcohol abuse. We tested whether increased CDT results occurred in patients on dialysis therapy. DESIGN AND METHODS:One hundred twenty-two samples from HD patients were analyzed by three different analytical methods and the results were compared with those obtained in 48 healthy volunteers. RESULTS:On the basis of the upper 97.5th percentile, positive CDT results were found in 25.4%, 9.8% and 12.3% of the HD patients with particle-enhanced immunonephelometry, capillary electrophoresis and HPLC, respectively. A significant correlation between CDT values and transferrin concentration was found for the particle-enhanced immunonephelometric test (r: -0.311; p: 0.0009). CONCLUSIONS:A high rate of positive CDT results was observed in HD patients with the particle-enhanced immunonephelometry and seems to be related to the low transferrin concentration.