WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A US scientific research team has made a major breakthrough, developing a blood test that detects Alzheimer's disease 20 years before it is diagnosed, with an accuracy of up to 94%, the French newspaper Le Parisien reported.
The new test could be a revolution, because the detection of Alzheimer's is currently only done by magnetic resonance imaging, a costly and time-consuming technique.
Randall Batman, a senior author of the study, told the Guardian newspaper that the test would theoretically enable them to test thousands of people a month and would also find treatment faster, which would have a major impact on the cost of the disease and the suffering it causes.
The team in the journal "Neuroscience" said it was able to measure the presence of beta-amyloid in the blood, a key indicator of Alzheimer's disease, adding that these beta-amyloid groups are detectable 20 years before the disease began.
But the blood test alone does not exceed 88% accuracy, which is not enough to achieve a reliable result, but by linking this technique with other indicators such as age and genetic variant (APOE4) associated with the disease, they were able to reach an accuracy of up to 94%.
However, it will be necessary to wait for the first treatments for the disease so that this test can be widely used.