Blood Test for Alzheimer’s

A new blood test that leverages a person’s immune response to detect Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in its early stages has been demonstrated to predict whether a patient suffering from Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) will eventually develop AD with an accuracy rate of 87 percent.

Samples from 236 subjects were analyzed using microarrays containing 9,486 individual human proteins as “bait” to attract blood-borne autoantibodies. The results identified 50 biomarkers capable of detecting early AD pathology, which were then tested against healthy age- and gender-matched control subjects. The results showed that the 50 biomarkers selected were 100 percent accurate in distinguishing MCI due to AD. The test was also disease-specific, distinguishing between AD, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and early-stage breast cancer with nearly 100 percent accuracy.

While MCI is considered to be indicative of early-stage AD, about 40 percent of cases are caused by other factors, including vascular disease, drug side effects and depression, so the ability to differentiate between AD and other causes is extremely beneficial. The ability to stage AD earlier may allow patients to delay its progression through lifestyle changes, begin treatment sooner and plan earlier for future care needs.