New Alzheimer’s Disease Detection Method Can Identify The Disease Up To 17 Years Earlier– Allowing For Quicker Intervention And Greater Patient Outcomes
According to the National Library of Medicine, about 6.2 million Americans over the age of sixty-five are currently living with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
This number is expected to grow to 13.8 million by 2060, “barring the development of medical breakthroughs to prevent, slow or cure AD.”
Early indicators of the disease include memory loss, challenges in problem-solving, and general confusion. However, these first clinically-identifiable symptoms are often revealed way too late.
In fact, patients with AD are typically symptom-free for fifteen to twenty years before they are eventually diagnosed with the disease.
So, discovering the presence of AD during that nearly two decades-long symptom-free period would significantly increase patients’ treatment options and outcomes.
Miraculously, a new research study conducted by Professor Klaus Gerwert– the founding director of the Center for Protein Diagnostics (PRODI)– and the German Cancer Research Center has found a way to detect AD up to seventeen years before symptoms first reveal themselves.
Once AD begins, a protein biomarker known as amyloid-beta starts to misfold. This misfolding is what causes brain deposits, or plaques, to develop as AD progresses– a well-known characteristic of the disease.
Instead of relying on the brain deposits to identify the presence of AD after their formation, though, the research team has discovered a way to identify the protein misfolding before it can cause irreparable damage.
They were able to detect the protein’s misfolding in blood samples using an immuno-infrared sensor– which could lead to an earlier diagnosis of up to seventeen years.
annanahabed – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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The blood samples used were from sixty-eight participants between the ages of fifty and seventy-five who had been diagnosed with AD and compared to a control group of two hundred and forty participants who were not diagnosed.
And now, the researchers hope to bring this protein misfolding early identification method to mainstream AD screenings and subsequent treatments via a new start-up known as betaSENSE.
“We plan to use the misfolding test to establish a screening method for older people and determine their risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia,” Gerwert explained.
“The vision of our newly founded start-up betaSENSE is that the disease can be stopped in a symptom-free stage before irreversible damage occurs.”
Since its discovery, the immuno-infrared sensor has been patented worldwide. And following its approval as a diagnostic device, the team plans to bring it to market as soon as possible.
To read the study’s complete findings published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, visit the link here.
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