Alcohol abuse represents a major health problem in the United States and around the world. In order to help doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals in evaluating alcohol consumption with regards to a diagnosis and monitoring, an accurate indicator of alcohol abuse is required. Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT), which is part of the most important iron transporting glycoprotein found in serum, is an accurate indicator of chronic alcohol abuse. Sebia Electrophoresis has developed an assay to measure percent carbohydrate-deficient transferrin by a capillary electrophoresis methodology that is suitable for screening and confirmatory testing. Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin is just one of the innovative assays present on the completely automated CAPILLARYS™ 2 menu.

The CAPILLARYS™ Carbohydrate-Deficient Transferrin (CDT) assay indicates alcohol abuse by separating serum transferrin isoforms into five major fractions according to their sialylation level — asialotransferrin, disialotransferrin, trisialotransferrin, tetrasialotransferrin and pentasialotransferrin. The carbohydrate-deficient transferrin isoforms consist of asialo-, monosialo-, and disialotransferrin and can be indicative of chronic alcohol abuse.