Scientists have identified a group of proteins that together indicate a person has Alzheimer's disease in what may be a big step toward an accurate test for the devastating brain ailment.
December 12, 2006 (Press Release) --
Scientists have identified a group of proteins that together indicate a person has Alzheimer's disease in what may be a big step toward an accurate test for the devastating brain ailment.
Doctors hope to accurately diagnose the disease, the leading cause of dementia among the elderly, in its early stages when treatment may provide the best results.
Screening for these proteins collectively permitted an accurate Alzheimer's diagnosis in about 90 percent of people involved in the study, appearing on Tuesday in the journal Annals of Neurology.
Brain examinations performed after the patients died confirmed the diagnosis, according to researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
They looked at 2,000 cerebrospinal fluid proteins taken in spinal taps from 68 patients and detected 23 proteins that formed a pattern indicating the presence of Alzheimer's.
There is currently no definitive test for Alzheimer's disease, and a diagnosis often cannot be confirmed absolutely until brain tissue is examined after a patient dies.
Without such a test, doctors have had to use their best judgment to distinguish whether a patient has Alzheimer's or another type of dementia.
The disease is commonly diagnosed only after it already has caused some degree of dementia.
'GETTING WORSE'
"Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disease. And somebody who is diagnosed with it typically is getting worse and worse all the time. So the earlier you can diagnose the disease, the better chance you have to intervene," Kelvin Lee, a scientist involved in the study, said in a telephone interview.
Lee, a Cornell professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, noted that drugs exist for Alzheimer's and that the earlier treatment begins the more likely it can forestall the disease's progression.
There is no cure for Alzheimer's, though. It gradually destroys a person's memory and ability to learn, reason, make judgments, communicate and carry out daily activities.
The disease first affects parts of the brain controlling memory and thinking, but as it advances it kills cells elsewhere in the brain. Eventually, if the patient has no other serious illness, the loss of brain function will prove fatal.
Researchers have been trying to detect "biomarkers" in blood or cerebrospinal fluid that may signal the presence of Alzheimer's disease.
Of the 68 people in the study, half had Alzheimer's, as confirmed in autopsies. The other half did not, although some had other types of dementia.
"Although it need not have turned out that way, several of the 23 markers that emerged from this analysis proved to be proteins with known links to the pathological mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease," Dr. Norman Relkin of Weill Cornell Medical College, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
Some were associated with the clogging of the brain, brain inflammation or breakdown of communication between brain cells, the researchers said.
Lee said a highly accurate chemical test for Alzheimer's disease still may be a few years away, and a key next step would be a similar study with a larger number of subjects.
"The ultimate goal ideally is to be 100 percent accurate with a spinal fluid test," Lee said, although a test might require a procedure not as invasive as a spinal tap, like a blood sample.
source: http://health.yahoo.com/
Doctors hope to accurately diagnose the disease, the leading cause of dementia among the elderly, in its early stages when treatment may provide the best results.
Screening for these proteins collectively permitted an accurate Alzheimer's diagnosis in about 90 percent of people involved in the study, appearing on Tuesday in the journal Annals of Neurology.
Brain examinations performed after the patients died confirmed the diagnosis, according to researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
They looked at 2,000 cerebrospinal fluid proteins taken in spinal taps from 68 patients and detected 23 proteins that formed a pattern indicating the presence of Alzheimer's.
There is currently no definitive test for Alzheimer's disease, and a diagnosis often cannot be confirmed absolutely until brain tissue is examined after a patient dies.
Without such a test, doctors have had to use their best judgment to distinguish whether a patient has Alzheimer's or another type of dementia.
The disease is commonly diagnosed only after it already has caused some degree of dementia.
'GETTING WORSE'
"Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disease. And somebody who is diagnosed with it typically is getting worse and worse all the time. So the earlier you can diagnose the disease, the better chance you have to intervene," Kelvin Lee, a scientist involved in the study, said in a telephone interview.
Lee, a Cornell professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, noted that drugs exist for Alzheimer's and that the earlier treatment begins the more likely it can forestall the disease's progression.
There is no cure for Alzheimer's, though. It gradually destroys a person's memory and ability to learn, reason, make judgments, communicate and carry out daily activities.
The disease first affects parts of the brain controlling memory and thinking, but as it advances it kills cells elsewhere in the brain. Eventually, if the patient has no other serious illness, the loss of brain function will prove fatal.
Researchers have been trying to detect "biomarkers" in blood or cerebrospinal fluid that may signal the presence of Alzheimer's disease.
Of the 68 people in the study, half had Alzheimer's, as confirmed in autopsies. The other half did not, although some had other types of dementia.
"Although it need not have turned out that way, several of the 23 markers that emerged from this analysis proved to be proteins with known links to the pathological mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease," Dr. Norman Relkin of Weill Cornell Medical College, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
Some were associated with the clogging of the brain, brain inflammation or breakdown of communication between brain cells, the researchers said.
Lee said a highly accurate chemical test for Alzheimer's disease still may be a few years away, and a key next step would be a similar study with a larger number of subjects.
"The ultimate goal ideally is to be 100 percent accurate with a spinal fluid test," Lee said, although a test might require a procedure not as invasive as a spinal tap, like a blood sample.
source: http://health.yahoo.com/
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