Science blesses Alzheimer: First blood test to detect the disease invented

Sydney, February 1: The world's first accurate blood test for Alzheimer's disease has been developed by a team of scientists from Australia and Japan, with the test able to detect the presence of the disease up to 20 years before symptoms begin.

  

The test could be used for frontline screening, to help speed up the selection of participants for clinical and prevention trials in two to three years, says Professor Katsuhiko Yanagisawa, director general of the Research Institute at the National Centre for Geriatrics and Gerontology in Japan, and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature today.

The test was 90% accurate when trialed on healthy people, those with memory loss and Alzheimer's patients. Experts said the approach was at an early stage and needed further testing, but was still very promising.

Alzheimer's disease starts years before patients have any symptoms of memory loss. The key to treating dementia will be getting in early before the permanent loss of brain cells. This is why there is a huge amount of research into tests for Alzheimer's.

The test is cheaper than brain scanning, "potentially enabling broader clinical access and efficient population screening", according to the study. At the moment there is no treatment to change the course of Alzheimer's, so any test would have limited use for patients. However, it could be useful in clinical trials.