A blood-based test could identify Alzheimer’s disease earlier, which could give patients a better chance of slowing or eventually preventing the brain disease
More than a century after Alzheimer’s disease was first described, there still isn’t a treatment to control the cognitive decline and memory loss that are the hallmarks of the neurodegenerative condition. The drugs that are available can alleviate some of the disease’s symptoms, but don’t work to address the root cause of the brain disease. And recent studies of promising drug therapies have failed to show much benefit for patients.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in the journal Neurology that they have developed such a blood test that may be up to 94% accurate in finding people with early Alzheimer’s brain changes. They had previously reported the results at the Alzheimer’s Association International conference in July, and it’s among the most advanced efforts to bring a blood-based test to the clinic.
To detect the circulating amyloid, researchers used mass spectrometry, a technique that separates out compounds in a sample by vaporizing them and then shooting them with an electron beam to create specific ionic signatures that identify specific molecules or proteins. The technique can record the amount of a-beta 42 and a-beta 40 from a blood sample.
That’s not accurate enough to use as a test to identify people at-risk of Alzheimer’s, so the team then combined the blood test with other well-known risk factors, such as the presence of a genetic factor called ApoE4, and age. When these additional factors were considered, the combination matched the PET scan 94% of the time.
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