A blood test has the potential to identify Alzheimer’s disease, and in persons with known genetic risk, could detect the disease as early as 20 years before the onset of symptoms. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference.
According to the new study, measurements of phospho-tau217 (p-tau217), one of the tau proteins found in tangles associated with Alzheimer’s disease, could provide a relatively sensitive and accurate indicator of both plaques and tangles.
"The p-tau217 blood test has great promise in the diagnosis, early detection, and study of Alzheimer's," said Oskar Hansson, MD, PhD, Professor of Clinical Memory Research at Lund University, Sweden, who leads the Swedish BioFINDER Study and is senior author on the study. "While more work is needed to optimize the assay and test it in other people before it becomes available in the clinic, the blood test might become especially useful to improve the recognition, diagnosis, and care of people in the primary care setting."
In the last two years, there have been significant developments for amyloid blood tests. A p-tau217 blood test has the potential to provide information about both plaques and tangles, supporting a diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
"Blood tests like p-tau217 have the potential to revolutionize Alzheimer's research, treatment and prevention trials, and clinical care," said Eric Reiman, MD, Executive Director of Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Phoenix and a senior author on the study. He continued, "While there's more work to do, I anticipate that their impact in both the research and clinical setting will become readily apparent within the next two years."