This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Researchers develop blood test to detect early Alzheimer's disease

Researchers from the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine have developed a blood test that can detect the mild cognitive stage of Alzheimer's disease.

According to a press release from the American Osteopathic Association, researchers completed a proof of concept study among 236 participants in which the test showed overall rates of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 100% in identifying patients who had an early stage of Alzheimer's.

"About 60% of all [mild cognitive impairment] patients have [mild cognitive impairment] caused by an early stage of Alzheimer's disease. The remaining 40% of cases are caused by other factors, including vascular issues, drug side effects and depression. To provide proper care, physicians need to know which cases of [mild cognitive impairment] are due to early Alzheimer's and which are not," Cassandra DeMarshall, the study's lead author, and a PhD candidate at the Rowan University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, said in the release. "Our results show that it is possible to use a small number of bloodborne autoantibodies to accurately diagnose early-stage Alzheimer's. 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."

The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, also demonstrated that the blood test can differentiate patients with mild cognitive impairment from patients with more advanced disease and patients with other diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and early stage breast cancer.

"It is now generally believed that Alzheimer's-related changes begin in the brain at least a decade before the emergence of telltale symptoms," Robert Nagele, MD, study researcher and director of the Biomarker Discover Center at Rowan's New Jersey Institute of Successful Aging, said in the release. "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 is also the cofounder and chief scientific officer of Durin Technologies Inc.

The researchers acknowledged that larger studies will be necessary to determine how useful it will be in the general population, but that their test may allow for earlier treatment.

"Early diagnosis of dementia has many potential benefits for clinicians, patients, and family members alike," they wrote. "These benefits include, but are not limited to earlier treatment, which may delay symptom progression, enrollment into clinical trials, which could potentially facilitate the development of new therapies and drug targets, as well as the ability to make lifestyle arrangements and manage future medical care. In addition to [mild cognitive impairment], this simple blood-based diagnostic method has also been verified in the detection and staging of early-stage [Parkinson’s disease], suggesting the potential for widespread application of this platform as a multi-disease diagnostic tool." – by Chelsea Frajerman Pardes

Disclosures: DeMarshall reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a complete list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.