ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, WAVEBREAKMEDIA
Three studies presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference this week describe the performance of blood tests used to diagnose, and even predict, Alzheimer’s disease using circulating levels of a form of tau protein called p-tau217. The largest assessment of this approach, which included 1,402 participants, showed that circulating p-tau217 levels worked just as well at detecting Alzheimer’s as standard PET scans and tests of cerebrospinal fluid.
“This blood test very, very accurately predicts who’s got Alzheimer’s disease in their brain, including people who seem to be normal,” Michael Weiner, an Alzheimer’s disease researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study, tells The New York Times. “It’s not a cure, it’s not a treatment, but you can’t treat the disease without being able to diagnose it. And accurate, low-cost diagnosis is really exciting, so it’s a breakthrough.”
A blood ...
