Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 14, 2016; 22(14): 3725-3734
Published online Apr 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i14.3725
Biomarkers for detection of alcohol consumption in liver transplantation
Katharina Staufer, Michel Yegles
Katharina Staufer, Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Michel Yegles, Laboratoire National de Santé, Service de Toxicologie médico-légale 1, rue Louis Rech, L-3555 Dudelange, Luxembourg
Author contributions: Staufer K contributed to conception and writing of article; Yegles M contributed to scientific advise.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Katharina Staufer, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria. katharina.staufer@meduniwien.ac.at
Telephone: +43-1-4040068700 Fax: +43-1-4040068720
Received: December 21, 2015
Peer-review started: December 24, 2015
First decision: January 13, 2016
Revised: January 26, 2016
Accepted: February 20, 2016
Article in press: February 21, 2016
Published online: April 14, 2016
Processing time: 98 Days and 17.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Currently, consensus statements on alcohol screening prior to and after liver transplantation are lacking. Routinely applied alcohol markers have certain limitations in the setting of liver disease and end-stage cirrhosis. Novel alcohol biomarkers, such as ethyl glucuronide in urine and hair as well as phosphatidylethanol, however, show promise to significantly improve the selection and surveillance of patients within the liver transplant setting.