Sano H, Suzuki Y, Ohara K, Yazaki R, Ishigaki T, Yokoyama T, Ohara K
Department of Psychiatry, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Japan.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 1992 Dec;16(6):1047-51. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1992.tb00697.x.
Alcohol withdrawal symptoms in alcoholics were objectively evaluated and classified into three groups according to the severity of their symptoms, and circadian variation in their plasma homovanillic acid (HVA) concentrations was determined at three different intervals after cessation of drinking. The subjects studied were 19 male alcoholic patients and five age-matched healthy male volunteers. Circadian variation in plasma HVA was compared between each patient group and the control group by two-way ANOVA. In the sympathetic overactivity (SO) group comprising nine patients and in the clouding of sensorium (CS) group comprising five patients, plasma HVA concentrations on the 2nd and 3rd day and on the 6th and 7th day after cessation of drinking were low but recovered almost normal levels on the 21st and 22nd postcessation day. The delirium tremens group (DT) comprising five patients, however, showed significantly higher plasma HVA than the control group except on the 6th and 7th postcessation day. The higher plasma HVA in the DT group indicates that there is some sort of preparatory state whereby dopamine metabolism is involved in the appearance of hallucinations at alcohol withdrawal and can possibly be used as a predictor of otherwise hardly predictable delirium tremens.
对酗酒者的酒精戒断症状进行了客观评估，并根据症状严重程度分为三组，同时在戒酒后的三个不同时间段测定了他们血浆高香草酸（HVA）浓度的昼夜变化。研究对象为19名男性酗酒患者和5名年龄匹配的健康男性志愿者。通过双向方差分析比较了各患者组与对照组血浆HVA的昼夜变化。在由9名患者组成的交感神经过度活跃（SO）组和由5名患者组成的意识模糊（CS）组中，戒酒第2天和第3天以及第6天和第7天的血浆HVA浓度较低，但在戒酒第21天和第22天恢复到几乎正常水平。然而，由5名患者组成的震颤谵妄组（DT），除戒酒第6天和第7天外，其血浆HVA显著高于对照组。DT组较高的血浆HVA表明存在某种准备状态，即多巴胺代谢参与了酒精戒断时幻觉的出现，并且可能被用作难以预测的震颤谵妄的预测指标。
