NCJ Number
132276
Journal
Journal of the Forensic Science Society Volume: 30 Issue: 5 Dated: (September/October 1990) Pages: 273-283
Date Published
1990
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The existence of sporadic fluctuations in blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was investigated in nine healthy volunteers during the post-absorptive stage of ethanol metabolism by analysis of arterial plasma obtained at 10-minute intervals and venous whole blood drawn at 3-minute intervals.
Abstract
The findings fail to support the existence of sporadic fluctuations or spiking in the blood alcohol concentration-time profile during the post-absorptive state. The method of headspace gas chromatography used to determine the concentrations of ethanol in blood and plasma had a standard deviation of 0.28 mg/dl for whole blood and 0.26 mg/dl for plasma; the coefficients of variations were 0.43 percent and 0.79 percent, respectively. The physiological variation from time-to-time, expressed as the residual standard deviation after fitting the ethanol concentration-time regression relationships, ranged from 0.43-3.7 mg/dl (0.65-16 percent). The time-to-time variations in concentrations of ethanol were maximum when there were problems in getting an unimpeded flow of blood through the indwelling catheters. The study emphasizes the need to control carefully the method of sampling blood and in this way keep pre-analytical sources of variation to a minimum. 2 figures, 1 table, and 28 references (Author abstract modified)