The test, not yet available, achieved 86% accuracy in identifying brain changes related to the disease, offering a non-invasive method of detection.
A drop of dried blood, obtained with a simple finger prick, like the one diabetics use to measure glucose, can be used to detect important markers of Alzheimer’s disease, thus avoiding more invasive tests.
A study involving the Carlos III Health Institute (Madrid) and the ACE Alzheimer’s Research Center in Barcelona, published on Monday in detailed a new method to detect this disease using a drop of blood taken from a fingertip and dried on a card.
The procedure was tested on 337 patients in seven European centers to find proteins related to Alzheimer’s and other brain changes in cerebrospinal fluid, achieving 86% accuracy in identifying changes related to the disease.
One in nine people over 65 has Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s is a neurodegenerative disease that seriously affects memory and other mental functions, causing a progressive loss of neurons as it progresses. Early detection is crucial for implementing treatments that can delay or stop its progression.
About one in nine people over the age of 65 suffers from this disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Current diagnostic tests, such as cerebrospinal fluid analysis or brain imaging techniques (such as CT or PET), are often invasive, expensive or inaccessible, and they also detect the disease when it is already quite advanced.
One of the challenges of current research is improve blood tests as an early diagnosis method.
One of the practical limitations of these blood tests is the handling and storage of the samples, as well as the availability of qualified personnel to collect them.
To overcome this challenge, the present study focuses on analysis of biomarkers from drops of blood collected from the fingertip and dried on a card. This is a test that patients can perform alone, without external help, as was the case in this study.
The authors found that the p-tau217 protein levels in samples obtained through fingerprints showed a high similarity with the results of conventional blood tests and allowed the identification of changes related to Alzheimer’s disease in the cerebrospinal fluid with 86% accuracy.
Other two biomarkers associated with the disease, GFAP and NFLwere also successfully measured and showed a high degree of agreement with traditional diagnostic tests.
The researchers also cautioned that this diagnostic procedure is not yet ready for clinical use and requires further development.
However, the results suggest that this simple technique could enable large-scale diagnostics, including for people with limited resources.
