In an effort to improve diagnosis and early detection of dementia, memory clinics throughout the United Kingdom will begin using blood tests. The research will involve around 5,000 volunteers and will be conducted by University College London and the University of Oxford. The study aims to produce blood tests for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia to detect the presence of rogue proteins such as amyloid and tau which begin to accumulate in the brain up to 20 years before symptoms emerge.
According to current statistics, only about 2% of dementia patients have one of the “gold standard” tests for Alzheimer’s—either a specialist PET brain scan or a spinal lumbar puncture. These tests are expensive, leaving around a third of patients with dementia without a formal diagnosis and full access to support and treatment options. The hope is that blood tests will be a cheaper and easier way for doctors to diagnose early-stage dementia and offer treatment options to those in need.
The five-year project will take place at more than 50 National Health Service memory clinics. The Oxford team will investigate alterative blood tests, including potential biomarkers for vascular and frontotemporal dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies, while the UCL team will focus on the most promising biomarker for Alzheimer’s—called p-tau217.
This study will investigate whether measuring p-tau217 in the blood can increase the rate of diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease in patients with early dementia and those with mild but progressive memory problems. There is also a two-stage treatment trial underway to determine if early diagnosis and treatment will improve clinical outcomes
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