Study can detect and track Alzheimer's

A new study by Penn's School of Medicine developed a test to detect Alzheimer's disease in patients in its early stages, before the disease's symptoms start to manifest.

Led by Leslie Shaw, the co-director of the Penn Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Biomarker Core, the study was published online in the journal Annals of Neurology this month.

"With this test, we can reliably detect and track the progression of Alzheimer's disease," Shaw said in a press release. "In addition, prevention trials can test methods to delay or block mild cognitive impairment from converting to full-blown Alzheimer's."

Alzheimer's disease is an incurable, terminal form of dementia that is generally diagnosed in people over the age of 65.

To conduct the study, Shaw's team collected small amounts of cerebral spinal fluids from each patient. The spinal fluid was used to measure the individual's biomarkers, which can indicate susceptibility to particular diseases.

There were three groups of patients, Shaw said. The first group consisted of cognitively normal patients with normal memory function. The second group consisted of patients with mild cognitive impairment, who showed some level of memory disorder beyond what was appropriate for their age.

Prior studies show that 15 percent of these individuals are likely to develop early Alzheimer's per year, Shaw explained.

The last group consisted of people who already had Alzheimer's disease.

By comparing those three groups, the study found that biomarker changes appeared in people with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease. The test was 87-percent accurate in predicting which patients would develop Alzheimer's.

Shaw said it is crucial to know more about predicting which patients are likely to develop Alzheimer's and which are not not likely to get worse.

"It is much harder to determine without having the additional information than the usual data," Shaw said.

Another purpose of the study, he added, is to provide data that would help future clinical trials "that evaluate new drug therapies or new treatment strategies that are hoped to slow down the progression of the disease, or even to stop the progression."

Still, further work is needed to develop additional biomarkers and find more genetic risk factors that will help distinguish Alzheimer's from other diseases, the press release said.

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