Canadian scientists have developed a new procedure for rapidly measuring alcohol concentrations in body fluids that may be useful in emergency situations. Bhushan Kapur, CChem, director of laboratories, and Yedy Israel, PhD, head of biochemical research at the Clinical Institute of Ontario's Addiction Research Foundation, described the results of a two-year study of the procedure at the recent meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry in New York City. The new tool, called the Alcohol Dipstick, features a glucose-test-like plastic strip for on-the-spot measurement of ethanol concentrations. A quarter-inch cellulose pad at one end of the strip is impregnated with a buffered solution containing yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide, pyrazole, iodonitrotetrazolium chloride (INT), and diaphorase. When the strip is dipped into saliva, urine, or serum that contains ethanol, it turns various shades of pink almost instantly because of a reaction between, on the one hand, the NADH that