A blood test that is 100 percent accurate in detecting early Alzheimer's disease has been developed by researchers from Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine and Durin Technologies.
Researchers studied blood results from 236 subjects and were able to differentiate those patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) caused by early Alzheimer's from those whose memory problems were caused by other physical problems, such as the side effects of drugs.
"About 60 percent of all MCI patients have MCI caused by an early stage of Alzheimer's disease," said Cassandra DeMarshall, Ph.D., the study's lead author.
"The remaining 40 percent of cases are caused by other factors, including vascular issues, drug side-effects and depression," she said. "To provide proper care, physicians need to know which cases of MCI are due to early Alzheimer's and which are not.
"Our results show that it is possible to use a small number of blood-borne auto-antibodies to accurately diagnose early-stage Alzheimer's," DeMarshall said. "These findings could eventually lead to the development of a simple, inexpensive and relatively noninvasive way to diagnose this devastating disease in its earliest stages."
"It is now generally believed that Alzheimer's-related changes begin in the brain at least a decade before the emergence of telltale symptoms," said the team's leader Dr. Robert Nagele. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first blood test using autoantibody biomarkers that can accurately detect Alzheimer's at an early point in the course of the disease when treatments are more likely to be beneficial — that is, before too much brain devastation has occurred," Nagele explained.
For the study, the Rowan University researchers analyzed blood samples from 236 subjects, including 50 MCI subjects with low levels of amyloid-beta 42 peptide in their cerebrospinal fluid. The latter is a reliable indicator of changes in the brain that predict a likely rapid progression to Alzheimer's.
The researchers identified the top 50 autoantibody biomarkers capable of detecting ongoing early-stage Alzheimer's pathology in patients with MCI. In multiple tests, the 50 biomarkers were 100 percent accurate in distinguishing patients with MCI due to Alzheimer's from healthy age- and gender-matched controls.
Further testing of the selected MCI biomarker panel demonstrated similar high overall accuracy rates in differentiating patients with early Alzheimer's at the MCI stage from those with more advanced, mild-moderate Alzheimer's (98.7 percent), early-stage Parkinson's disease (98.0 percent), multiple sclerosis (100 percent) and breast cancer (100 percent).
The researchers believe that early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and the ability to determine the stage of the disease through a simple blood test would offer many possible benefits. Patients could possibly delay disease progression through lifestyle adjustments, begin treatment sooner, and plan future medical care. Clinicians would have a way to measure the effectiveness of therapeutic intervention , and clinical trials could enroll patients who were truly at the earliest stage of their disease.
The study was published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring.
According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's, and the number may triple by 2050.
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