Daily Updates with RF Rizwan Farrukh
According to scientists, a blood test that may be able to identify Alzheimer’s in patients could be ready in two years.
New research has shown that the test works long before the recognisable symptoms arise and is 90 percent accurate.
The inventors of the test believe that it would let drugs be tested in the early stages of the disease, in the hope of delaying or even stopping further deterioration.
The test was devised at King’s College London, by Professor Simon Lovestone who said, “A drug that worked in that preclinical phase would feel like prevention.”
“You would go to your doctor take a drug, and in effect you would have the clinical symptoms prevented, even if the clinical disease has started in your brain,” he added.
Doctors know that Alzheimer’s begins to affect the brain at least ten years before there are obvious signs of the disease.
The new test is able to identify ten key proteins in the blood of patients that have mild cognitive impairment, that will go on to develop Alzheimer’s in the next year.
A major trial was published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia, with results that showed that the test is 87 percent accurate.
The majority of the trial drugs fail because by the time patients are given the drugs, the brain has already been too severely affected.
It is very relieving to know that a simple blood test can help to identify this in patients at a much earlier stage.
