US researchers have developed a blood test that aims to identify patients with an early stage of Alzheimer's disease. According to study results published in "Alzheimer's and Dementia", the biomarkers can help differentiate between a mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage caused by Alzheimer's and mild impairment with other causes.
The researchers from Rowan University in Stratford, New Jersey, enrolled 236 participants in their proof of concept study, among them 50 with MCI, which is indicated by low levels of amyloid-beta 42 peptide in their cerebrospinal fluid. All samples were screened using human protein microarrays, each containing nearly 9,500 unique human proteins that are used as bait to attract blood-borne autoantibodies. In this way the researchers identified the top 50 autoantibody biomarkers capable of detecting MCI.
In multiple tests, the 50 biomarkers were 100 per cent accurate in distinguishing patients with MCI due to Alzheimer's from healthy controls. Further differentiation of patients with early Alzheimer's at the MCI stage from those with more advance, mild-moderate Alzheimer's yielded equally accurate results (98.7 per cent), as did detection of early-stage Parkinson's disease (98.0 per cent), multiple sclerosis (100 per cent) and breast cancer (100 per cent).
"About 60 percent of all MCI patients have MCI caused by an early stage of Alzheimer's disease. The remaining 40 percent 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 MCI are due to early Alzheimer's and which are not," said lead author Cassandra DeMarshall. However, using MCI biomarker panel as a blood test for early detection of Alzheimer's disease will hinge on a successful larger replication study using an independent patient cohort.
Univadis
