Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, have made remarkable progress in developing a blood test for Alzheimer's disease 20 years before the onset of symptoms.
The researchers hope the new test will help future drug trials, speeding up the process of selecting potential participants, and ultimately accelerating the pace of finding a cure for the disease, according to The New York Times.
"Researchers choose clinical studies by brain radiographs, but they are time-consuming and costly," said Randall Pittman, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Washington, the lead author of the research published in the journal Neurology. "But the new blood test will help researchers examine thousands in one month."
The new blood test measures the levels of beta-amyloid, a protein that scientists found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, and is currently using positron emission tomography to test the presence of protein in the brains of study participants, but it is very expensive.
The new test does not provide a very accurate diagnosis, with a success rate of 88% in an experiment involving 158 people over the age of 50. However, the test can help future researchers to detect Alzheimer's disease within a few years, which may help doctors discover the first Signs of this silent disease.
• The new test will help researchers examine thousands during a month.