A new study has identified which blood tests are best at detecting Alzheimer's disease during the earliest stages, and another blood test that is optimal for detecting relevant treatment effects. These findings will speed up the development of new therapies that can slow down the disease progression.
From: University of Gothenburg
December 1, 2022 -- The
Swedish study lead by Professor Oskar Hanssson, Lund University, and Professor
Kaj Blennow, University of Gothenburg, looked at several newly development
blood tests for Alzheimer's disease pathology and neurodegeneration in 575
individuals from the BioFINDER cohort. In 242 participants, the plasma tests
were repeated for up to 6 years, along with cognitive testing and magnetic
resonance imaging.
The study, published
in Nature Medicine, revealed that multiple blood biomarkers, namely
phospho-tau231 and Aβ42/40, were sufficient in identifying Alzheimer's disease
pathology, even in participants with no symptoms and thus, could be used as
strategy to select the correct individuals for novel disease modifying trials
-- a task which currently requires expensive molecular imaging technique or
lumbar punctures.
Yet, over the 6 years
tested, it was shown that only phospho-tau217 was related to Alzheimer's
disease pathology, a decline in cognitive performance and increased brain
atrophy typical of incipient Alzheimer's. Therefore, phospho-tau217 will be an
ideal marker for detection of relevant disease-modifying effects of novel
interventions. The study has large implications on the use of blood test in the
recently reported anti-Aβ trials.
"Distinctive blood
tests may be optimal for the identification of Alzheimer's pathology or for
monitoring of disease progression and therefore have different roles in
clinical trials" first author of the research study Dr. Nicholas Ashton
from the University of Gothenburg explained.
"This study has
shown that phospho-tau217 is uniquely placed to be an optimal test for
monitoring patients in both a clinical setting and a trial setting because of
its longitudinal association with Alzheimer's development."
An important aspect of
this study was that p-tau217 was able to monitor such changes in pathology and
cognition at very early stages of the disease process. This finding was
replicated in an independent cohort from the USA, Wisconsin Registry for
Alzheimer's Prevention (WRAP).
"Besides improving
the design of clinical trials, the novel blood tests will revolutionize the
diagnoses of early stages of Alzheimer's disease," says Oskar Hansson.
"Further, phospoho-tau217 might be used in the future to monitor the
response in individual patients to disease-modifying therapies in clinical
practice.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221201123133.htm
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