A breakthrough study gives hopes for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease without having to undergo painful lumbar puncture and expensive brain imaging, reports The Guardian
It all takes now a blood test where it previously required a sample of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) drawn from the lower back through the painful puncturing, according to the research published in the journal Brain.
If the test is validated it could help initiate therapies for Alzheimer’s disease earlier.
Alzheimer’s is the most dread form of memory loss as diagnosis still remains a challenge.
It is really hard to find out the condition in its early stages, according to the report.
Currently diagnosis look for three distinct markers in suspected cases: abnormal accumulations of amyloid and tau proteins and neurodegeneration, according to the report.
The latter is about the slow and progressive loss of neuronal cells in specified regions of the brain.
A lumbar puncture can be painful with headaches and back pain. Brain imaging as said earlier is expensive and take long time before patients' turn comes.
Prof Thomas Karikari at the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania who involved in the research said that a blood test is cheaper and safer and easier.
While blood test help accurately detect abnormalities in amyloid and tau proteins, it is still harder to detect markers of nerve cells damage.
The researchers are developing an antibody-based blood test to detect the tau protein called brain-derived tau, which is specific to Alzheimer’s disease.