Blood Test Validated for Identifying Patients With Early Alzheimer’s Disease: Presented at ADI
By Jenny Powers
THESSALONIKI, Greece -- March 15, 2010 -- The results of a validation study presented here at the 25th Conference of Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) confirms the usefulness of a new blood test for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) at a preclinical stage.
Birgitte Booij, MD, DiaGenic ASA, Oslo, Norway, presented the results of the validation study here on March 12.
Diagnosis of AD is difficult since early-stage symptoms are often similar to cognitive declines experienced in normal ageing, yet an accurate diagnosis is crucial for the treatment and management of the condition.
The blood test measures the pattern of specific gene expression changes reported to be implicated in AD pathology.
After a blood sample is taken from the patient, the RNA is then extracted and cDNA prepared before application to the low-density array. The performance of all the 96 gene assays is evaluated by an algorithm that results in a test score indicating the presence or absence of AD.
This independent validation study was done on 248 adults.
Results showed that the test should be able to discriminate between patients with early AD and from healthy adults with at least a 73% overall agreement with the clinical diagnosis (assuming a clinical accuracy of 80% in a validation study, a biomarker with 90% “true” accuracy can be expected to give an observed accuracy of 70%-75%).
The test performance was confirmed in an independent validation study that showed good performance in mild and moderate AD cases.
Supported by DiaGenic, Inc.
[Presentation title: Validation of a Novel Blood Test for the Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease - Challenges With an ‘Imperfect Gold Standard.’ Abstract OC022]
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