One disturbing characteristic of Alzheimer's is the complication in determining whether mild memory problems are just that, memory problems, or the beginning of an inevitable mental decline to dementia.
Now doctors hope things will be simpler with the use of a particular blood test to establish which patients of theirs are just having memory problems and which have the possibility of developing into Alzheimer's 2-6 years before it actually happens.
Scientists from Palo Alto, California's Stanford University have reported in the journal Nature Medicine that they have found eighteen proteins that are linked to the disease and which could be used to develop a non-invasive test for this. The idea of the blood test came about when Associate professor of neurology at Stanford Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray and fellow scientist Sandip Ray considered the fact that it wasn't necessarily to actually look at the brain, but one could achieve the same results by analyzing the blood, as it flows through the whole body.
To date there has not been much success in research regarding the diagnosis of the disease and it can only confirmed with the carrying out of a post-mortem. This promises to change that and will be extremely useful as patients can be treated sooner and it can also determine if and how new treatments are having the required effect.
In their study the researchers identified a connection between changes in the way cells communicate with each other and changes in the brain of a person having Alzheimer's
As part of their investigations the scientists examined the blood of 259 patients from clinics in the United States, Italy, Sweden and Poland at different times. Some of the subjects were suffering from Alzheimer's at various stages and some were not. They isolated 120 messenger proteins and it was in the Alzheimer patients' blood that the 18 proteins were found.
These proteins were concerned with activating the immune cells or macrophages responsible for the disposal of microbial invaders and abnormal proteins, one type of which is the abnormal protein that causes Alzheimer's. Wyss-Coray believes that in this case these cells are either not as efficient, or are fewer in number.
He elaborated, “Our hypothesis is that there is something wrong with the production of certain blood cells, which may be needed to clear that stuff that accumulates in the brain in Alzheimer's disease."
The research team agreed that more work was necessary to confirm their results, and a prototype test is on the cards at Satoris. Lead author Wyss-Coray is reported to have said, “The company (Satoris Inc., founded by him) hopes to have a test available, for research purposes only, early next year…A clinical test for patients might be available in a couple of years."
From the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Rebecca Wood described the research as “exciting” and the results and accuracy levels as “very promising” but also stressed the need for further research, while Dr Susanne Sorensen, of the Alzheimer's Society, described a blood test as a huge step forward.
This is not the only study on the matter, however. According to Chairman of the Alzheimer's Association's medical and scientific advisory council Sam Gandy, researches at Diagenics International Corp Woburn Massachusetts at New York Weill-Cornell Medical Center and those by neuroscientist Norman Relkinher are also reported as having done the same thing.
