PET scan results that formed part of earlier research into Alzheimer’s disease.
Credit: Evan Vucci/AP
A blood test that can detect signs of Alzheimer’s as much as 20 years before the disease begins to have a debilitating effect has been developed by researchers in the US.
Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis in Missouri believe the test can identify changes in the brain suggestive of Alzheimer’s with 94% accuracy, while being much cheaper and simpler than a PET brain scan.
The results of the study, which was published in the journal Neurology on Thursday, represent a potential breakthrough in the fight against the disease.
“Right now we screen people for clinical trials with brain scans, which is time-consuming and expensive, and enrolling participants takes years,” said the senior author, Randall Bateman, a leading professor of neurology.
“But with a blood test, we could potentially screen thousands of people a month. That means we can more efficiently enrol participants in clinical trials, which will help us find treatments faster, and could have an enormous impact […]
I do not think I would want to know I was going to get Alzheimer’s disease until their is a solution to the problem, and so far there does not seem to be one. That would cause people to be anxious the rest of their lives about getting the disease which would be harmful to a person’s anxiety levels which is in itself a bad problem, needing treatment.