Alzheimer's blood test is the highlight of the 2020 AAIC.

Read: Tau markers take us one step closer to Alzheimer's disease.
a simple blood test for Alzheimer's disease will be a huge step forward for people with Alzheimer's disease and at-risk groups, their families, doctors and researchers.
at the 2020 Alzheimer's Society International Conference (AAIC®, scientists report progress on several studies of blood "testing" of tau protein abnormalities, which may detect changes in the brain 20 years before the onset of dementia.
report specifically points out the special tau protein called p-tau217, which appears to be the most specific to Alzheimer's disease and is the earliest shown to be measurable changes.
changes in amyloid and tau proteins in the brain, and the clumps they form (known as plaques and tangles, respectively), define the physical characteristics of the brain for Alzheimer's disease.
people believe that the accumulation of tau protein entanglement is closely related to cognitive decline.
in these newly released results, the amount of p-tau217 in blood/plasma also appears to be closely related to the accumulation of amyloid protein.
p-tau217 is a tau protein found in tangles.
currently, brain changes before Alzheimer's symptoms can be reliably assessed only through positron emission tomography (PET) and detection of amyloid and tau proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
these tests are expensive and intrusive, and are often not covered, or difficult to popularize, or for both reasons, and therefore unacceptable to patients. Dr Maria C. Carrillo, chief scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association at
, said: "There is an urgent need for simple, inexpensive, non-invasive, and accessible Alzheimer's diagnostic tools.
new testing techniques can also contribute to drug development in many ways.
, for example, by helping to identify the right person for a clinical trial and tracking the impact of experimental therapies.
the possibility of early detection and intervention in treatment before Alzheimer's disease causes serious damage to the brain, will significantly benefit patients, their families, and our health care system.
", for example, blood tests will help explain and understand the development of Alzheimer's disease in larger, more diverse, and more robust populations.
Carrillo added: "While these new reports are encouraging, they are early results and we do not yet know how long these tests will take clinically."
we need to test in large-scale long-term studies, such as clinical trials of Alzheimer's disease.
in addition, we need to continue our research to refine and validate currently at the forefront of detection techniques, including cerebrospinal fluid and PET imaging biomarkers.
"The accuracy of detecting Alzheimer's disease (such as plaques and tangles) using p-tau217 in the blood is higher, according to a report published in AAIC 2020, a team of international researchers identified a highly accurate blood biomarker that detects Alzheimer's disease by measuring the level of p-tau217 in the blood, and validated the findings in a number of different populations."
scientists found that "the diagnosis of p-tau217 in the blood is as accurate as existing diagnostic methods, including PET imaging and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, but the existing diagnostic methods are expensive, intrusive and not readily available."
" the team was led by Oskar Hansson, M.D., of Lund University in Sweden, and other key researchers included Dr. Sebastian Palmqvist and Dr. Sherna Janelidze of Lund University in Sweden, Dr. Eric Reiman of the Alzheimer's Institute in Banner, USA, and Dr. Jeffrey Dage of Lilly Pharmaceuticals. Researchers at Lund University in
published their findings on AAIC and online.
they studied three different cohorts, with more than 1,400 cases, including a large clinical study in Sweden (BioFINDER-2), a cohort that uses neuropathological pathology to confirm Alzheimer's disease (Arizona Aging and Neurode Disease Research), and the genetic Alzheimer's disease family (Columbia's case-based prechrotic Alzheimer's disease registry).
they analyzed experimental biomarkers (p-tau217, p-tau181, A beta42/40, and nerve light chains) in blood and cerebrospinal fluid, and tested PET imaging of tau proteins and amyloid proteins.
the main finding of the study is that p-tau217 in the blood can distinguish Alzheimer's disease from other neurodegenerative diseases, with diagnostic accuracy ranging from 89% to 98%.
in the study, p-tau217 evaluated Alzheimer's disease more accurately than blood-based p-tau181, nerve wire light chain or beta amyloid 42/40 ratio, and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
in fact, the researchers say, the performance is similar to much more expensive methods, such as PET imaging and cerebrospinal biomarkers.
researchers also found that analysis of p-tau217 in the blood before life could detect brain changes in the tau protein in brain tissue after death.
thought to be linked to the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain of these tau proteins.
p-tau217 was able to distinguish between patients with plaques and entanglements and those without Alzheimer's disease pathology with an accuracy of 89%, and to identify people with plaques and wider entanglements, with an accuracy of 98% and tauPET imaging with an accuracy of 93%.
the levels of p-tau217 increased about sevenfold in Alzheimer's patients, and in patients with the gene that causes Alzheimer's disease, p-tau217 levels began to increase 20 years before the onstheiable cognitive impairment. "Once confirmed and confirmed, this test has the potential to lead to early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease before it occurs, which is important for evaluating clinical trials of new therapies that may stop or slow the disease's progress."

"The amyloid and p-tau proteinin in the blood are the exact markers of brain amyloid tau protein lesions in order to advance the study of blood testing for Alzheimer's disease, dr. Suzanne Schindler of the University of Washington's St. Louis School of Medicine and colleagues evaluated the performance of various amyloid proteins and tau in the blood."
using mass spectrometry techniques, the scientists mapped the plasma tau protein and compared the results with cerebrospinal fluid and PET imaging methods.
they used PET scans to find that p-tau217 was more closely related to the formation of amyloid plaques in the brain than the better known p-tau181.
, their findings suggest that measuring the amount of several different forms of p-tau in the blood may allow clinicians and researchers to track the development stages of Alzheimer's patients.
researchers say Alzheimer's blood tests combined with amyloid and tau protein indicators may be able to diagnose dementia earlier and more accurately.
scientists conducted studies to evaluate the amyloid protein in the blood and dementia (SEABIRD) -related imaging in order to develop and verify a queue of Alzheimer's blood biomarkers that are more diverse and representative in the Greater St. Louis area.
SEABIRD research program enrolls more than 1,100 people with different races, socio-economic status, medical histories and cognitive status. Recent studies
plasma p-tau217 and p-tau181 are comparable in distinguishing between Alzheimer's disease and temporal lobe, and recent studies have shown that p-tau181 levels in Alzheimer's patients are more than three times higher than those in healthy older adults or people with neurodegenerative disease temporal lobe (FTLD).
at AAIC 2020, Dr. Elisabeth Thijssen and Dr. Adam L. Boxer of the Center for Memory and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues published a comparison of p-tau181 and p-tau217 to determine which tau form best identifies Alzheimer's patients.
the retrospective study included 617 participants: 119 health controls, 74 Alzheimer's patients (biomarker-confirmed) and 294 patients with temporal lobe.
in this study group, the plasma p-tau181 in Alzheimer's patients increased threefold compared to the control group and the temporal lobe group.
plasma p-tau217 increased even more;
plasma comparison results were consistent with those of tauPET imaging in the brain.
p-tau181 and p-tau217 were 91% and 96% accurate in predicting whether individuals were positive in tau protein brain scans, respectively.
researchers said the study showed an increase in p-tau217 and p-tau181 levels in the blood of Alzheimer's patients, a measure that was very consistent with the "golden standard" PET scan.
these blood tests may help diagnose Alzheimer's disease and serve as a monitoring tool in clinical trials to measure the effectiveness of new treatments for Alzheimer's disease.
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