“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
PARIS (AP) — Scientists are closing in on a long-sought goal: A
blood test to screen people for Alzheimer’s disease.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
An experimental test did a good job of indicating how much of the
telltale Alzheimer’s plaque lurks in people’s brains, Australian
researchers reported Wednesday. If the test proves accurate in
larger studies, it could offer a way to check people having memory
problems to see who needs more definitive testing for the
disease.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
Many blood tests are being developed and a few are used in research
settings now, but only the Australian one has been validated
against brain scans and other accepted diagnostic tests with good
accuracy in large groups of people, said Maria Carrillo, senior
director of medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer’s
Association.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
The results, reported Wednesday at the Alzheimer’s Association
International Conference in France, “give us hope that we may be
able to use a blood test in the near future,” although that doesn’t
mean next year, she said.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
More than 5.4 million Americans and 35 million people worldwide
have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. It has no cure
and drugs only temporarily ease symptoms. Finding it early allows
patients and their families to prepare, and ruling it out could
lead to diagnosing a more treatable cause of symptoms, such as
sleep problems.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
Brain scans can show signs of Alzheimer’s – sticky clumps of a
protein called beta amyloid – a decade or more before it causes
memory and thinking problems, but scans are too expensive and
impractical for routine use. Doctors and patients need simple ways
to screen people for the disease.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
Samantha Burnham and others at Australia’s national science agency,
CSIRO, working with several universities, used a long-running study
of more than 1,100 people – some healthy, some impaired – to
develop the blood test.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
They started with blood samples from 273 study participants and
identified nine hormones and proteins that seemed most predictive
of amyloid levels in the brain. A cutoff level was set for what was
considered high.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
“The belief is that people above that point will go on to get
Alzheimer’s disease, and the lag is about 8 to 10 years,” Burnham
explained.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
When researchers used the nine-marker blood test on these same
participants, they found that it separated healthy people from
those with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s as verified by
their brain scans. The test correctly identified 83 percent of
people with high amyloid levels and correctly ruled out 85 percent
of people without this condition.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
“That’s pretty high,” the Alzheimer’s Association’s Carrillo said
of the test’s accuracy.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
More importantly, she said, the Australian researchers validated
the test’s accuracy in two additional groups: the other 817 folks
in the Australian study and 74 people in a big U.S.-led study aimed
at finding novel Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
The test performed well in those situations, too, Burnham
said.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
CSIRO has patented the test and is talking with major companies
about making it commercially available.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
“It sounds like the Australians do have good clinical data” and
that the markers they are testing for track with cases of the
disease, said Creighton Phelps, a neuroscientist with the U.S.
National Institute on Aging.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
The next step is wider validation work and ensuring it can be
standardized to give reliable results regardless of what lab or
doctor would use it, he said.
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
—
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
Online:
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
National Institute on Aging: “text-decoration: none; color: #000066;” href=
“http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers” target=
“-blank”>http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
Alzheimer’s Association: “text-decoration: none; color: #000066;” href=”http://www.alz.org/”
target=”-blank”>http://www.alz.org
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
—
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;”>
Marilynn Marchione can be followed at “text-decoration: none; color: #000066;” href=
“http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP” target=
“-blank”>http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
“font-family: Verdana, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 13px; color: #000000; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal verdana, helvetica, arial;”>
“text-decoration: none; color: #000066;” rel=”item-license” name=
“56b3dcdb-b9c8-4acb-bb0f-0b9449372837” href=
“http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_MED_ALZHEIMERS_BLOOD_TEST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-07-20-07-20-06#56b3dcdb-b9c8-4acb-bb0f-0b9449372837″> © 2011 The
Associated Press may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed. “http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/privacy”>Privacy
Policy
