within specialist healthcare, and diagnostic work-up is even more difficult in primary care.
‘Simple algorithm predicts the predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease in the future with great accuracy of over 90% by combining the data from a simple blood test and brief memory tests. This will serve a significant role in clinics without access to advanced diagnostic instruments and thereby bring a major difference in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.’
Existing diagnostics methods like spinal fluid sample, or PET scan measures the proteins tau and beta-amyloid with accuracy but are expensive and available only at a relatively few clinics worldwide.
Thus the present study examined 340 patients with mild memory impairment in the Swedish BioFINDER Study for developing an early and accurate diagnostic tool of AD that would help in slowing down the progression of the disease. The results were confirmed in a North American study of 543 people.
A combination of relatively easily accessible tests – simple blood test (measuring a variant of the tau protein and a risk gene for Alzheimer’s) and three brief cognitive tests that only take 10 minutes to complete, was utilized to formulate a simple prognostic algorithm for more reliable and, early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
Simple diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s Disease
It was found that the diagnostic tool predicted with over 90% certainty which patient would develop Alzheimer’s dementia within four years. This was significantly better than clinical diagnosis by the dementia experts who examined the patients but did not have access to expensive spinal fluid testing or PET scans.
“Our algorithm is based on a blood analysis of phosphylated tau and a risk gene for Alzheimer’s, combined with testing of memory and executive function. We have now developed a prototype online tool to estimate the individual risk of a person with mild memory complaints developing Alzheimer’s dementia within four years”, says Sebastian Palmqvist, first author of the study and associate professor at Lund University.
One of the main advantages of the algorithm is that it has been developed for use in clinics without access to advanced diagnostic instruments. The authors anticipate the use of this algorithm in near future for bringing a major difference in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s within primary healthcare.
“The algorithm has currently only been tested on patients who have been examined in memory clinics. Our hope is that it will also be validated for use in primary healthcare as well as in developing countries with limited resources”, says Sebastian Palmqvist.
The study thereby highlights the fact that this simple diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s might help in improving the development of drugs in a time- & cost-effective manner and further slow down the course of the disease.
Source: Medindia
