A blood test can be used to diagnose Alzheimer's disease without the need for brain scans or a painful back puncture. The test could speed up the diagnosis of the disease.
Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, but it is difficult to diagnose.
Current guidelines recommend the detection of three distinct markers: abnormal accumulations of amyloid and tau proteins, as well as neurodegeneration, the slow and progressive loss of neurons in specified regions of the brain. A combination of brain and CSF analysis can be used. Brain scans are expensive and take a long time to schedule, while a lumbar puncture can be painful and people may experience headaches after the procedure.
A lot of patients in the US don't have access to the kind of scans that were studied. It's a big issue of accessibility.
A reliable blood test is an important step in the right direction. A blood test is cheaper, safer and easier to administer, and it can improve clinical confidence in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
Markers of nerve cell damage that are specific to the brain can be difficult to detect with current blood tests. A group of people around the world focused on developing a blood test that could detect a specific form of brain-derivedtau, which is related to Alzheimer's disease.
They tested it in 600 patients at various stages of Alzheimer's and found that it correlated well with levels of tau in the brain. The severity of amyloid plaques and tangles in brain tissue from people who had died with Alzheimer's is closely related to the levels of proteins in their body. It was published in a journal.
The test will be tested in a broader range of patients, including those from different racial and ethnic groups, as well as those suffering from different stages of memory loss.
Clinical trials for Alzheimer's treatments could be improved by monitoring levels of brain-derivedtau in the blood.
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