PHILADELPHIA – July 28, 2024 – According to research that was presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia on July 28th, a new blood test can provide earlier and a more accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. This could provide a quicker pathway to treatment. The blood test was about 90% accurate in identifying Alzheimer’s disease in patients who have already exhibited early symptoms. The study was performed at Lund University in Sweden. It has just been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The tau protein blood test predicts the likelihood of amyloid plaques in the brain. The buildup of tau protein in the blood is felt to be a biomarker that occurs before patients show impairment with the ability to think, learn, remember, use judgement and make decisions. These are the important symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid plaques have been shown to be present in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Reducing the formation of the plaques has been the target of recently approved medical treatments.
The traditional methods used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease is a medical history, mental status tests, physical and neurologic exams, brain imaging, and a lumbar puncture to analyze cerebral spinal fluid. The study reports that without the blood test, primary care physicians can only diagnose the disease with 63% accuracy and neurology specialists are a little better at 73%. More than 1 thousand patients participated in the study.
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Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, [email protected]
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