Differences in Platelet Enzyme Activity between Alcoholics and Nonalcoholics

To the Editor: The report of a new diagnostic test for alcohol abuse 1 is potentially exciting news for clinicians. As Dr. Reich pointed out in his accompanying editorial, "objective laboratory markers of alcohol consumption are needed that will permit the identification of heavy drinkers after ethanol is no longer present in the blood." 2 Can assessments of platelet enzyme activity reliably identify heavy drinkers when ethanol is no longer present in their blood? This question is best answered by determining the positive predictive value of the test — i.e., the probability that a randomly selected patient with a positive test result . . . No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.