A simple blood test shows promise as a way to detect Alzheimer’s disease, potentially greatly improving the accuracy and speed of diagnosis.
Currently, Alzheimer’s is diagnosed through a combination of memory and cognition tests, brain imaging and clinical tests, but these tests are often aimed at ruling out other possible causes of the symptoms, he said. National Institute on AgingStill, misdiagnosis is widespread, with researchers in a new study reporting that up to 35% of patients in specialist clinics are misdiagnosed, a figure that may be even higher for those who only attend general practices.
Several blood tests have shown promise as diagnostic tools but their complexity has hindered them — a problem that a new method developed by an international team of doctors may solve.
Like previous blood tests for Alzheimer’s, this test aimed to find biomarkers in plasma (the liquid part of blood) that would indicate the presence of certain proteins associated with Alzheimer’s. Plasma phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) is also found in cerebrospinal fluid, but it is more difficult to extract than blood. The test also looked for the ratio of two components of plaques that form in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. If p-tau217 was found in a sample along with a certain ratio of plaque components, the researchers theorized, it would be conclusive evidence that the patient had Alzheimer’s.
The patients were divided into groups and the results of blood tests were compared with those of cerebrospinal fluid tests. in study Published in Journal of the American Medical Association, The researchers said their new method was able to accurately detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease in about 90 percent of patients.
The study was carried out over a four-year period on more than 1,200 Swedish patients suffering from dementia symptoms.
While the early results are promising, the researchers note that more research is needed before a blood test can be widely available, but they acknowledge that earlier diagnosis, thanks to promising new technology, could lead to better outcomes. Immunotherapy Treatment Currently undergoing testing.
