黑料吃瓜群网

Macquarie University鈥檚 researchers say they are a step closer to a blood test for diagnosing Alzheimer鈥檚 early in the disease鈥檚 progression.

A study by Professor Ralph Martins and colleague Dr Pratishtha Chatterjee from the university鈥檚 Centre for Ageing, Cognition and Wellbeing has found that several blood biomarkers reflect the core hallmarks of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, which is the most common form of dementia.

Martins said current standard clinical testing only provides a possible or probable diagnosis of Alzheimer鈥檚.

鈥淐erebrospinal fluid samples and brain imaging can confirm if someone has Alzheimer鈥檚, but these are invasive and expensive, so they are not commonly done,鈥� he said.

鈥淏lood biomarkers would be cheap, easily accessible and have the ability to deliver high throughput testing.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important to be able to confirm a diagnosis early on, as this will allow patients and their families to be better prepared for future challenges, provide opportunities for them to be involved in clinical trials and lower the cost of screening participants for these trials.鈥�

The study makes use of data from the Australian Imaging Biomarker and Lifestyle Study of Aging (AIBL).

Dr Chatterjee said they found that a panel of blood-based biomarkers, including amyloid beta (A尾42/40 ratio), phosphorylated-tau181 (p-tau181) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), had high discriminative performance for Alzheimer鈥檚 disease from preclinical to dementia stages with an accuracy of 85鈥�95%.

鈥淲e also showed that low plasma A尾 and high p-tau181, GFAP and neurofilament light chain (NFL) levels were associated with faster future cognitive decline, and low plasma A尾 and high p-tau181 and GFAP were associated with faster future brain A尾 accumulation,鈥� she said.

鈥淥ver 36 months, plasma A尾 decreased, and p-tau181 and GFAP increased, at a faster rate in people with mild cognitive impairment when compared to healthy people, and GFAP and NFL increased at a faster rate in Alzheimer鈥檚 disease when compared to healthy individuals.鈥�

Dr Chatterjee said further investigation will now be required to validate the clinical cut-off points for implementation in clinical settings, including looking at people from multiple ethnic backgrounds and those with comorbidities.

Image credit: 漏stock.adobe.com/au/Have a nice day