A blood test could upset the management of Alzheimer’s patients by detecting the disease 3 years before the diagnosis.
At present, there exists several ways to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. The first step is to make a neuropsychological assessment. Although it may not allow an immediate diagnosis of the disease, this kind of test helps doctors to highlight cognitive disorders.
If the assessment is worrying, the patient realizes an MRI. It is usually during this examination that specialists can find out whether a patient has Alzheimer’s or not. However, this review usually comes too late. This slows down management and can make treatment of the disease less effective.
Researchers are therefore trying to develop alternatives to detect the disease more quickly. Recently, researchers developed an app that can spot the signs of Alzheimer’s just with a selfie. But today it is possible to get a real diagnosis through a blood test.
This is what emerges froma study reported in the specialist magazine EurekAlert.
Observe the evolution of certain cells to detect the first signs of the disease
If analyzing the blood to confirm a diagnosis seems normal, this blood test has a particularity that could revolutionize the care of patients. Indeed, the test is able to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease 3 years before the official diagnosis.
To achieve these results, the researchers called on 56 volunteers. All had in common to suffer from mild cognitive impairment. These can be temporary following an accident or a stressful situation. But they can also be warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Then the researchers performed blood tests and patient swabs. These tests were spread over several years to see if there was any change in the blood. Indeed, some of the elements present in the blood “can modulate the formation of new brain cells, a process called neurogenesis”.
The blood test still on the test bench
But they noticed the presence of changes in neurogenesis. And in patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, these changes occurred more than 3.5 years before the official diagnosis.
The researchers also took advantage of this study to observe in detail the evolution of neurogenesis. And they found decreased cell growth and division and increased cell death. This concerned the diagnosed patients and not the volunteers suffering only from mild cognitive disorders.
In this respect, this first study is therefore very promising. Eventually, it could even open the door in a few years to a pre-diagnosis via blood test.