Latest development suggests that scientists have developed a blood test to “diagnose Alzheimer’s disease without the need for expensive brain imaging or a painful lumbar puncture.”
“If validated, the test could enable faster diagnosis of the disease, meaning therapies could be initiated earlier,” Linda Geddes writes. The study which was published in the journal Brain involved at least 600 patients at various stages of Alzheimer’s.
While it is the most common form of dementia, diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is still a big challenge especially at the earlier stages of the disease.
“Current guidelines recommend detection of three distinct markers: abnormal accumulations of amyloid and tau proteins, as well as neurodegeneration – the slow and progressive loss of neuronal cells in specified regions of the brain,” Geddes observes.
“A lot of patients, even in the US, don’t have access to MRI and PET scanners. Accessibility is a major issue, says Prof Thomas Karikari from the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, US and a contributor to the study.
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He argues that: “A blood test is cheaper, safer and easier to administer, and it can improve clinical confidence in diagnosing Alzheimer’s and selecting participants for clinical trial and disease monitoring.”
“Although current blood tests can accurately detect abnormalities in amyloid and tau proteins, detecting markers of nerve cell damage that are specific to the brain has been harder,” Geddes writes.
The study established that “levels of the protein correlated well with levels of tau in the CSF and could reliably distinguish Alzheimer’s from other neurodegenerative diseases.”