A new Swedish study shows that blood tests from 1200 suspected Alzheimer patients diagnosed the condition with 91 percent accuracy and much faster than previous methods, moving early detection forward.
Alzheimer’s can be cumbersome to diagnose, requiring a hard-to-get brain scan or an uncomfortable spinal tap. Many patients are diagnosed based on symptoms and cognitive exams.
In the Swedish study, patients who visited either a primary care doctor or a specialist for memory complaints got an initial diagnosis using traditional exams, gave blood for testing and were sent for a confirmatory spinal tap or brain scan.
Blood testing was far more accurate, Lund University researchers reported on Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia.
The primary care doctors’ initial diagnosis was 61 per cent accurate and the specialists’ 73 per cent, but the blood test was 91 per cent accurate, according to the findings, which also were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“The blood test can determine with 90 per cent accuracy whether a person experiencing memory loss is suffering from Alzheimer’s,” Sebastian Palmqvist, associate professor of neurology at Lund University and one of the study’s co-lead authors, said in a statement.
Oskar Hansson, a professor of neurology at Lund University and the other lead author, added in a statement that “early diagnosis is crucial as new treatments that slow the disease’s progression are developed”.
“The next steps include establishing clear clinical guidelines for the blood test’s use in healthcare,” Hansson said.
