Effort During Ethanol Breath Testing Impacts Correlation with Serum Ethanol Concentration
The assessment of breath exhalation effort is meaningful in determining how well a patient's breath ethanol level correlates with the serum ethanol concentration. Poor breath effort, when compared to normal breath effort, was associated with higher ethanol levels as well as a larger difference and a greater variability between breath and serum values. If an accurate ethanol level is important for clinical decision-making, a physician should not rely on a poor-effort breathalyzer value.
Authors
- Samuel J. Stellpflug (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2378-5280)
- A Coomes
- Bjorn Westgard (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1275-753X)
- Michael D. Zwank (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3715-1035)
- Roar Johnsen
- Robert C. LeFevere (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4816-4437)
- William H. Menton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0151-712X)
Institutions
- Regions Hospital (US)
- Minneapolis VA Health Care System (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Western Journal of Emergency Medicine
- Published
- 2025-02-06
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.24998
- Primary Topic
- Alcohol Consumption and Health Effects
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00