Citation

Gruener O. Proc. Int. Counc. Alcohol Drugs Traffic Safety Conf. 1982; 1982: 152-171.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1982, The author(s) and the Council, Publisher International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In general it should be possible to derive blood alcohol concentrations from breath alcohol analysis i.e. the breath alcohol analysis should permit conclusions to be drawn with regard to the blood alcohol concentration, customarily determined by examining blood from the cubital vein. Pre-requisites for this purpose are: (1) a precise technique to quantitatively and qualitatively determine the alcohol content of breath air. A survey of older and newer devices confirms that this criterium has by and large been fulfilled or has apparently been fulfilled; (2) knowledge of the alcohol distribution during the resorption and elimination phases, especially the alcohol concentration ratio that exists between lung capillary blood and cubital vein blood; (3) a knowledge of the alveolar air alcohol concentration in comparison to the lung capillary blood alcohol concentration; (4) a knowledge of the expired air composition under: (a) various respiratory techniques, (b) different temperatures, (c) various physiological factors, (d) pathological pre-conditions, and their influences upon the alcohol concentration ratio between expired and alveolar air. Although requirement (1) is or can be fulfilled, many relationships in requirements (2) to (4) are not sufficiently clear, especially the requirements (3) and (4), thus, there exists no precise basis for assessing the numerous results of in vivo experiments at the moment. Therefore, at present, the use of breath alcohol determinations cannot replace the blood alcohol determination, at least for forensic purposes. With further intensive studies a sufficient reliability may be obtained to justify the determination of blood alcohol concentrations from breath analyses even if only for the study of physiological and psychological factors in alcohol experiments.