Manipulation of Breath Alcohol Tests: Can Specific Techniques Alter Blood Alcohol Concentration Readings?

September 11, 2017 updated by: Holly Stankewicz, D.O., St. Luke's Hospital and Health Network, Pennsylvania
This is a prospective cohort study. The investigators will enroll 50 healthy volunteers. In a safe environment and after signing informed consent, each participant will consume a standardized alcoholic beverage. Using a Breathalyzer, the subjects BAT will be measured. If the subject's BAT is less than 0.10 +/- 0.005, the subject will drink another alcoholic beverage. This process will continue until the subject's BAT is 0.10 +/- 0.005. The number of alcoholic beverages the subject consumes will be monitored by the observers. When the target BAT is reached, the subjects will manipulate the breathalyzer in various ways and measure their BAT again after each manipulation. In a set order, the subjects will manipulate the breathalyzer by using less than the subject's maximal exhalation effort, placing the breathalyzer at the side of the subject's mouth, hyperventilating (10 rapidly (less than 1 second) and successive breaths prior to using the device), repeating breathalyzer 5 minutes and 10 minutes after hyperventilation and then drinking cold water after the breathalyzer at 10 minutes and repeating the breathalyzer after drinking some cold water. Descriptive statistical analyses as well as Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient will be employed to determine if any statistically significant correlation exists for any of the manipulations.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

54

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Pennsylvania
      • Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States, 18015
        • St. Luke's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

21 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • healthy volunteers over age 21

Exclusion Criteria:

  • pregnancy
  • alcoholism
  • diabetes
  • kidney/bladder stones
  • kidney disease
  • liver disease
  • stomach ulcer
  • organ transplant patients
  • dialysis patients
  • subjects with alcohol allergies
  • subjects taking the following medications: activated charcoal, ampicillin, carbamazepine, cephaloridine, cloxacillin, methicillin, nitroglycerine, oxacillin, penicillin G, or quinicillin

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: all study participants
subjects consumed alcohol to a BrAC of 0.1 and then performed the following manipulations while using the breathalyzer: poor effort, hyperventilation (immediate), hyperventilation (after 5 minutes), hyperventilation (after 10 minutes), drinking water (immediate), drinking water (after 5 minutes)
Device: breathalyzer

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Percent Alcohol Concentration Measured by Breathalyzer
Time Frame: 20 minutes
20 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

St. Luke's Hospital and Health Network, Pennsylvania

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Holly Stankewicz, D.O., St. Luke's University Hospital

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

August 1, 2015

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2015

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 10, 2015

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 16, 2015

First Posted (Estimate)

October 20, 2015

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

September 15, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 11, 2017

Last Verified

September 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • SLHN 2015-28

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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