Studies Show Blood Testing May Be Just as Good If Not Better than PET Scans in Detecting Early Alzheimer’s Disease

For decades, researchers have worked to create a cost-effective and accurate blood test for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. A new study suggesting that elevated levels of the protein tau phosphorylated at threonine 217 (p-tau-217) is an accurate biomarker for early onset of Alzheimer’s offers new hopes of achieving that goal. The Diagnostic Challenge Alzheimer’s damages brain cells well before it impairs cognitive ability. And by the time patients manifest symptoms of impaired thinking, it is too late to treat them. That makes it critical to identify Alzheimer’s as early as possible before patients suffer cognitive impairment. Alzheimer’s patients generate abnormally large amounts of certain proteins in the brain that clump together to form plaques, strangling nerves and severing nerve connections. Current diagnosis of Alzheimer’s relies largely on the use of positron emission tomography (PET) scans to detect buildups of these proteins. But PET scans are relatively expensive and only about 70 percent accurate. What is needed is a more accurate, easier and less costly detection test—like a blood test. The AAIC Study One potential biomarker for early Alzheimer’s is an elevated level of the p-tau-217 protein. A study discussed at the annual Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) in July […]