The test could be performed easily by a nurse or medical technician in a doctor’s office or outpatient clinic.
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI) describe a biomarker that can accurately distinguish between Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia during the first one to two years of the disease’s progression.
The BRNI biomarker showed high accuracy when tested with human skin cells from a tissue bank, as well as for samples obtained in a previous, unpublished study of patients with autopsy-confirmed diagnoses. The biomarker could also potentially be used with blood samples.
“When it begins, Alzheimer’s disease is often difficult to distinguish from other dementias or mild cognitive impairment,” says Dr Daniel Alkon, scientific director of BRNI and co-author of the study with Dr Tapan Khan, assistant professor. “Potential treatments of Alzheimer’s, however, are likely to have their greatest efficacy before the devastating and widespread impairment of brain function that inevitably develops after four or more years.”