- Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition that causes memory impairment, was the focus of a new study published by Swedish researchers.
- The researchers designed a two-step disease detection process that may aid in reducing unnecessary invasive testing related to Alzheimer’s disease.
- The researchers believe this process could improve diagnostic accuracy and reduce healthcare system costs.
Researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden recently collaborated with researchers in Canada in efforts to improve testing for Alzheimer’s disease.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, affects approximately 10% of people over the age of 65 in the United States.
As the number of people with Alzheimer’s continues to grow, it is imperative that researchers find ways to detect the disease sooner and begin interventions to slow disease progression.
One test available that can aid in the diagnostic process for Alzheimer’s disease is the p-tau217 biomarker blood screen. This checks for a buildup of the amyloid protein, which can cause organ damage.
A drawback to current p-tau217 screening is that it can result in a lot of false negatives or positives and lead to unnecessary invasive testing. For this reason, the researchers in the new study wanted to find a way to improve these results.
First, the researchers combined testing p-tau217 with other risk factors in people with mild cognitive impairment to determine their risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Next, they performed a cerebrospinal fluid biomarker test on people they determined had an uncertain risk outcome.
This two-step process resulted in an improvement in the number of false negatives or positives, the researchers report in their study paper, published in
The research analyzed data from 348 participants with mild cognitive impairment, collected via the BioFINDER studies on memory. Some criteria the participants had to…
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