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Researchers at the University of Washington's Faculty of Medicine have developed a blood test that can detect early brain changes due to Alzheimer's disease.
In one research paper Posted in Neurology, the team that includes Dr. Randall Bateman, lead author, professor of neurology, and Dr. Suzanne Schindler, badociate professor of neurology, first author, said they can measure the levels of a damaging protein causing memory loss and confusion badociated with Alzheimer's in the Blood and use levels to predict whether protein accumulates in the brain.
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Protein clusters accumulate up to two decades before the onset of symptoms
The study found that when amyloid blood levels are combined with age and the presence of the APOE4 genetic variant, those with early brain changes due to the disease. Alzheimer's can be detected with an accuracy of 94%.
The researchers said the work brings it closer to developing a blood test to identify people who will develop Alzheimer's disease well before symptoms start to appear. Two decades before the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, clumps of proteins begin to form in the brain.
"Right now, we're selecting patients for clinical trials with brain scans, which takes time and money, and enrolling participants takes years," Bateman said in an interview. Press release announcing the results of the research. "But with a blood test, we could potentially track thousands of people every month. This means we can more effectively enroll participants in clinical trials, which will help us find treatments faster and could have a huge impact on the cost of the disease as well as the human suffering that accompanies it. The researchers noted the test that they developed can be more noticeable than a PET brain scan, which is the current reference standard.
Test could be available in the coming years
The researchers predicted that a test might be available for doctors in the next few years, but that the benefits of an early detection test will be even greater when treatments are created to curb the progression of the disease of Alzheimer's and prevent dementia. In the current state of things, the researchers said that clinical trials of drugs likely to stop and / or prevent the disease are hampered by the difficulty of finding people with Alzheimer's brain changes but do not suffering no cognitive problems such as memory loss. With the blood test, clinicians can better track patients' clinical trials.
The researchers tested an earlier version two years ago. In this study, researchers examined 158 adults over the age of 50, all but 10 cognitively. Each provided a blood sample and underwent a PET scan. The researchers then clbadified each blood sample and PET scan as a positive or negative amyloid substance. They found that in 88% of cases the blood test was PET. To improve accuracy, researchers included risk factors such as age and the genetic variant called APOE4, which increased the accuracy of the blood test to 94%.
Blood test could reduce PET count
The researchers also discovered that if patients were given a blood test and then followed by a PET for confirmation, the number of PETs could be reduced by two-thirds.
"If you want to screen an asymptomatic population for a prevention trial, you have to screen, say, 10,000 people to get 1,500 or 2,000 eligible candidates," Bateman said. "Reducing the number of PETs could allow us to conduct twice as many clinical trials for the same time and cost. What worries us is not the $ 4,000 per PET. It is the millions of patients who suffer while we have no treatment. If we can do these tests more quickly, it will bring us closer to the end of this disease. "
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