An alternative strategy to breath alcohol concentration measurement is the use of venus capillary arterialization to obtain an “arterialized” line for blood sampling. An “arterialized” line is a validated technique that uses a heated hand box to draw blood from a hand vein warmed for at least 15 minutes, eliminating the need for arterial catheterization (164). As the hand temperature rises, increased blood flow shortens the transit time through the tissue, making BAC in warmed hand veins a reliable indicator of arterial BAC (165). This technique has been proven to be critical for the assessment of peak BAC reached in populations whose maximum brain exposure takes place soon after oral alcohol ingestion (i.e., when gastric emptying is accelerated), such as in patients who underwent gastric surgeries (166) (see section below).
