Blood test that can diagnose Alzheimer's disease may soon hit the market

Doctors today diagnose Alzheimer's disease by checking the patient's family history, looking for neurological signs, and carrying out a physical exam and mental assessment. Scientists, Georges Rammouz, Laurent Lecanu, Paul Aisen, Vassilios Papadopoulos, from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, Canada announced recently that a blood test that can diagnose Alzheimer's disease  may soon be available to the public.  Their study titled "A Lead Study on Oxidative Stress-Mediated Dehydroepiandrosterone Formation in Serum: The Biochemical Basis for a Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease" was  published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Senior author Dr. Vassilios Papadopoulos, said:"Until now, there has been no definitive diagnostic tool for Alzheimer's, other than postmortem analysis of brain tissue. Our clinical study shows that a non-invasive blood test, based on a biochemical process, may be successfully used to diagnose Alzheimer's at an early stage and differentiate it from other types of dementia."

The blood test is based on the production of the brain hormone, DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone). Using oxidation they  promoted DHEA production. They found that oxidation of blood from Alzheimer's patients did not raise DHEA levels, while it did among patients without Alzheimer's.

Papadopoulos said: "There is a clear correlation between the lack of ability to produce DHEA through oxidation in the blood and the degree of cognitive impairment found in Alzheimer's disease. We demonstrated we could accurately and repetitively detect Alzheimer's disease, with small samples of blood. This test also allowed for differential diagnosis of early stages of Alzheimer's disease, suggesting this can be used as a test to diagnose the disease in its infancy.

"There are many candidate disease-modifying therapies that target the underlying development of Alzheimer's disease, which are in clinical trials. However, the implementation of any therapy is dependant on the reliability of the diagnosis. An accurate, easy and specific non-invasive biochemical test that correlates with clinical findings is vital. We believe our results demonstrate that the DHEA-oxidation blood test can be used to diagnose Alzheimer's at a very early stage and monitor the effect of therapies and the evolution of the disease."