Seth Augenstein
6-9-16
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/06/rowan-researchers-prove-efficacy-early-alzheimers-test?et_cid=5331300&et_rid=280879682&type=cta&et_cid=5331300&et_rid=280879682&linkid=http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/06/rowan-researchers-prove-efficacy-early-alzheimers-test?et_cid=5331300&et_rid=%%subscriberid%%&type=cta
Alzheimer’s can develop and systematically destroy the brain over a matter of years. Researchers have emphasized the need for early detection, to slow the progress of the disease.
A blood test that looks at a group of 50 autoantibodies proved to be 100 percent accurate in detecting the disease among a group of patients with mild cognitive impairment, according to a Rowan University study published in the Elsevier journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring.
The latest refinement is part of a years-long process for the long-anticipated diagnostic, under the leadership of researcher Robert Nagele.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first blood test using autoantibody biomarkers that can accurately detect Alzheimer’s at an early point in the course of the disease when treatments are more likely to be beneficial – that is, before too much brain devastation has occurred,” Nagele said in a school statement.
The test involves looking at a collection of 50 autoantibodies, produced by the body in response to afflictions.
The blood of 236 subjects included a group of 50 with mild-cognitive impairment.
The test was 100 percent accurate picking out the people with impairments due to Alzheimer’s from healthy patients. However, it also differentiated early Alzheimer’s from more advanced Alzheimer’s and early Parkinson’s, at rates of 98-plus percent.
It was also 100 percent effective at determining the cognitively-impaired early Alzheimer’s patients from those with multiple sclerosis and breast cancer, the scientists say.
Roughly 60 percent of the mild-cognitive impairment cases are caused by early Alzheimer’s, according to Cassandra DeMarshall, the lead author, and a Rowan doctoral candidate. Knowing which cases are the disease or from other causes could be vitally important, she added.
“Our results show that it is possible to use a small number of blood-borne autoantibodies to accurately diagnose early-stage Alzheimer’s,” said DeMarshall. “These findings could eventually lead to the development of simple, inexpensive and relatively noninvasive way to diagnose this devastating disease in its earliest stage.”
The idea for the Alzheimer’s test began with a “Eureka” moment in 1999. Nagele was sent a brain slide by a former student of his working at Johnson and Johnson. When he applied a stain to the brain matter, the tissue darkened brown – showing proteins that should not have been there in a healthy organ, he told The Star-Ledger in 2011. Nagele thereafter narrowed down the auto-antibodies he was looking at from a sample of nearly 10,000 down to just 10, he added. Accuracy rates at that time were 95 percent, and the test took just 24 hours, according to the report.
Alzheimer’s is caused by a breakdown in the blood-brain barrier, Nagele and his team believe. Once plasma components leak into the brain, autoantibodies could potentially bind to neurons, and accelerate the telltale build-up of beta amyloid.
Nagele's last findings on the test were presented at the American Osteopathic Association’s annual conference last fall.
The Rowan team also reported in the journal Immunology Letters in October they had developed a diagnostic that can detect Parkinson’s Disease at an accuracy rate of 87.9 percent in the earliest stages.
6-9-16
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/06/rowan-researchers-prove-efficacy-early-alzheimers-test?et_cid=5331300&et_rid=280879682&type=cta&et_cid=5331300&et_rid=280879682&linkid=http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/06/rowan-researchers-prove-efficacy-early-alzheimers-test?et_cid=5331300&et_rid=%%subscriberid%%&type=cta
Alzheimer’s can develop and systematically destroy the brain over a matter of years. Researchers have emphasized the need for early detection, to slow the progress of the disease.
A blood test that looks at a group of 50 autoantibodies proved to be 100 percent accurate in detecting the disease among a group of patients with mild cognitive impairment, according to a Rowan University study published in the Elsevier journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring.
The latest refinement is part of a years-long process for the long-anticipated diagnostic, under the leadership of researcher Robert Nagele.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first blood test using autoantibody biomarkers that can accurately detect Alzheimer’s at an early point in the course of the disease when treatments are more likely to be beneficial – that is, before too much brain devastation has occurred,” Nagele said in a school statement.
The test involves looking at a collection of 50 autoantibodies, produced by the body in response to afflictions.
The blood of 236 subjects included a group of 50 with mild-cognitive impairment.
The test was 100 percent accurate picking out the people with impairments due to Alzheimer’s from healthy patients. However, it also differentiated early Alzheimer’s from more advanced Alzheimer’s and early Parkinson’s, at rates of 98-plus percent.
It was also 100 percent effective at determining the cognitively-impaired early Alzheimer’s patients from those with multiple sclerosis and breast cancer, the scientists say.
Roughly 60 percent of the mild-cognitive impairment cases are caused by early Alzheimer’s, according to Cassandra DeMarshall, the lead author, and a Rowan doctoral candidate. Knowing which cases are the disease or from other causes could be vitally important, she added.
“Our results show that it is possible to use a small number of blood-borne autoantibodies to accurately diagnose early-stage Alzheimer’s,” said DeMarshall. “These findings could eventually lead to the development of simple, inexpensive and relatively noninvasive way to diagnose this devastating disease in its earliest stage.”
The idea for the Alzheimer’s test began with a “Eureka” moment in 1999. Nagele was sent a brain slide by a former student of his working at Johnson and Johnson. When he applied a stain to the brain matter, the tissue darkened brown – showing proteins that should not have been there in a healthy organ, he told The Star-Ledger in 2011. Nagele thereafter narrowed down the auto-antibodies he was looking at from a sample of nearly 10,000 down to just 10, he added. Accuracy rates at that time were 95 percent, and the test took just 24 hours, according to the report.
Alzheimer’s is caused by a breakdown in the blood-brain barrier, Nagele and his team believe. Once plasma components leak into the brain, autoantibodies could potentially bind to neurons, and accelerate the telltale build-up of beta amyloid.
Nagele's last findings on the test were presented at the American Osteopathic Association’s annual conference last fall.
The Rowan team also reported in the journal Immunology Letters in October they had developed a diagnostic that can detect Parkinson’s Disease at an accuracy rate of 87.9 percent in the earliest stages.