The aim of the study was to check the usefulness of pharmacokinetic modelling for back calculation of alcohol concentration. A group of 17 persons (12 men and 5 women) was subjected to an investigation. The persons in each experiment were given the alcohol in the form of 40% v/v vodka. The amounts of alcohol was supposed to cause the maximum concentration of 1 g/L ethanol in blood according to the theoretical calculations based on the Widmark formula. The alcohol concentration in blood samples was determined by gas chromatography. The simulations were performed using two variants of the one compartment model with first order absorption and zero order elimination. The assumptions of rate of absorption (half-life of absorption 15 and 20 min) and elimination (B60 0.1 and 0.2 g/l/h) were adopted. The maximum alcohol concentrations obtained from simulation were in the range from 0.68 to 0.84 g/l according to the adopted assumption, and these values were very close to these obtained after alcohol consumption by volunteers (0.77±0.19). The performed research shows that pharmacokinetic modelling allowed the more precise estimation of maximal alcohol concentration then Widmark formula, however the calculation of consumed dose and back calculation of alcohol concentration are similar by both methods.
Abstract