Questions have swirled around the effectiveness of new blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease. According to a new study, such tests are usually sufficiently accurate to diagnose the disease.
A team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis analyzed and compared the accuracy of six blood tests, four of which are currently available. Central to testing the efficacy was detecting the presence of amyloid plaques in the brain.
The analysis found that some tests are accurate enough to replace invasive spinal tap procedures and brain scans for many patients with cognitive impairment. In fact, blood tests were able to correctly detect Alzheimer’s in patients with memory problems 90% of the time.
The comparison project was launched by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Biomarkers Consortium, a public-private partnership including Washington University. The study involved 392 individuals who had given blood samples within six months prior to their brain scans. The participants had a median age of about 78 years, and nearly half had cognitive impairment.
“Some of the blood tests are accurate and some are not, and doctors don’t know which tests to use,” said Suzanne Schindler, MD, an associate professor of neurology at Washington University. “With this head-to-head comparison, doctors now have more reliable information about which tests will best help them provide an accurate diagnosis to their patients.”
Early detection of dementia is key in starting preventative treatment measures, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approving two drug therapies to slow the impact of dementia.
Confirming a patient’s amyloid plaque buildup is the first step prior to prescribing a treatment plan, as current dementia drug therapies are approved for those with mild dementia symptoms.
The six tests were developed by ALZpath, C2N Diagnostics, Fujirebio Diagnostics, Janssen, Quanterix, and Roche Diagnostics. C2N Diagnostics, a startup from Washington University, bases its Alzheimer’s tests on technology licensed from the university.
“We concluded that, to be used without a second test, blood tests need to be as accurate as FDA-approved cerebrospinal fluid tests, which are approximately 90% sensitive and specific at identifying Alzheimer’s disease in cognitively impaired individuals,” Schindler said. “In this current study, the p-tau217 tests met that standard, but the others did not.”
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