Correlación entre concentraciones de GGT y grado de severidad de la abstinencia etílica

background: The alcohol withdrawal syndrome is a group of symptoms and signs that occur in alcoholic patients after discontinuation of alcohol consumption, severity of symptoms should be determined to guide the need for treatment, with a validated tool such as the CIWA-Ar scale. Sometimes the history of alcoholism is inexplicable, and suspected alcohol dependence is present, so that biochemical markers of alcohol consumption are helpful for diagnosis. Objective: To determine whether there is correlation between GGT levels and the severity of alcohol withdrawal syndrome. material and method: A descriptive, cross-sectional, observational study was performed at two Hospitals of the SSDF in the Emergency and Internal Medicine services, during the period from October 2010 to May 2013. We included patients older than 18 years with the alcohol withdrawal syndrome. We excluded subjects diagnosed with hepatic insufficiency Child Pugh B and C, subjects with intake of other hepatotoxic products and subjects enrolled with neurological impairment or neuropsychiatric not associated with the alcohol withdrawal syndrome. We assessed the CIWA-Ar scale and measured biomarkers of alcohol consumption. The Pearson correlation coefficient was applied. Results: The study included 38 patients who met the inclusion criteria; all were men with an average age of 39 years. The average severity of the CIWA-Ar scale was 17.95 ± 8.7. No significant correlation was found between the level of GGT and the degree of severity of the alcohol withdrawal (r = 0.076, p = 0.651), no significant correlation was found between the ratio GOT-GPT (r = 0.197, p = 0.235), mean cell volume (r = 0.266, p = 0.1) and alkaline phosphatase (r = 0.119, p = 0.47) with the degree of severity of the alcohol withdrawal. Conclusion: GGT level had no significant correlation with the degree of severity of the alcohol withdrawal syndrome, indicating that there are other possible variables involved in the severity of this syndrome.