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Blood alcohol testing: comparison of the performance obtained with the different methods used in the Belgian external quality assessment schemes.

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Devleeschouwer, Nicole Libeer, Jean Claude Martens, Frank K Neels, Hugo Van Damme, Marc Wallemacq, Pierre [UCL]

This study describes the performance of the different methods used for blood alcohol analysis by the Belgian laboratories participating in the external quality assessment scheme. The best performance was achieved by the gas chromatography (GC) and the enzymatic methods. The enzymatic methods are easier to use but more apparatus-dependent, whereas GC methods display higher precision, especially at concentrations near the critical legal limit of 0.5 g/l. The study highlights the need to introduce a methodology other than the chemical oxidation-based method of Casier, the sole legal method for forensic analyses in drinking-driving cases in Belgium. This method with poor intra-laboratory, inter-laboratory and linearity performances has definitely become obsolete. Even though GC clearly appears as the method of choice, mainly due to its higher specificity, the present study also shows the need for practical guidelines to improve the quality of GC alcohol analyses used in Belgium.

Document type Article de périodique (Journal article) – Article de recherche
Access type Accès restreint
Publication date 2004
Journal information "Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine : Associated with FESCC and IFCC" - Vol. 42, no. 1, p. 57-61 (2004)
Peer reviewed yes
Publisher Walterde Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG (Berlin)
issn 1434-6621
e-issn 1437-4331
Publication status Publié
Affiliations UCL - MD/BICL - Département de biochimie et de biologie cellulaire
UCL - (SLuc) Service de biochimie médicale
UCL - (SLuc) Centre de toxicologie clinique
MESH Subject Alcohols - blood ; Belgium ; Chemistry, Clinical - methods - standards ; Humans ; Reproducibility of Results ; Sensitivity and Specificity
Keywords Alcohol ; Blood alcohol ; Ethanol ; External control ; External quality assessment
Links
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Bibliographic reference Devleeschouwer, Nicole ; Libeer, Jean Claude ; Martens, Frank K ; Neels, Hugo ; Van Damme, Marc ; et. al. Blood alcohol testing: comparison of the performance obtained with the different methods used in the Belgian external quality assessment schemes.. In: Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine : Associated with FESCC and IFCC, Vol. 42, no. 1, p. 57-61 (2004)
Permanent URL http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/26218