Part of the reason this new testing method is so significant is that patients with Alzheimer’s now have options for treatment.
Over 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, but up until now, the only ways to diagnose the disease, which causes progressive memory loss, were through a costly PET scan or a painful lumbar puncture to test a patient’s cerebrospinal fluid.
But this could all change soon. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved a new blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s, and Northeastern University experts say the test could help patients and their families detect the disease earlier and get better treatment.
“Having a blood test is much easier than having to go get a PET scan, which is a little daunting for people,” says Gary Young, professor of public health and health sciences at Northeastern. “A lumbar puncture, while typically done without much discomfort, is also going to be a little bit more distressing. The blood test is a very positive development.”
Part of the reason this new testing method is so significant is that patients with Alzheimer’s now have options for treatment. Last year, the FDA approved Kisunla, a new Eli Lilly IV therapy meant to help slow the progression of Alzheimer’s. Kisunla joined Leqembi, another amyloid plaque-destroying IV therapy on the market.
The two are some of the first treatments available for slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s. Previously, patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s didn’t have any treatment options, but now they have options with early detection.
“(Before) there was not much we could do for you,” Young says. “Now we have treatments. Those treatments are limited, but the fact that we have those now and we are perhaps in a better position to do early detection of the disease is a big step up in combating what is obviously a very serious illness.”
Early detection will also allow patients and their families to better plan for their future, says Becky Briesacher, a recently retired associate professor of pharmacy and health sciences. Not only can they start preparing for long-term care, but they can also be on the lookout for other symptoms in the short term and plan to address them.
“We’ve found it is better to be identified as early as possible in the process, so that you’re getting interventions to preserve your cognition for as long as possible,” Briesacher says. “And one of the things we know is that people who are starting in the early phases of cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s start doing things like making bad financial decisions. We want to make sure that that kind of thing is caught earlier, so those decisions are now going to be facilitated by someone else.”
The blood test, called the Lumipulse G pTau217/ß-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio, will be used on people over age 55 who’ve already been subjected to a cognitive test and showed signs of decline.
In these types of tests, clinicians would commonly ask patients to draw a clock and then have them recall a series of words, Briesacher says. Many would rely on these tests to determine whether a patient was experiencing a cognitive decline.
One of the other pros with the blood test is its accuracy, says Art Kramer, Northeastern director of the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health and professor of psychology, which is helpful in determining who should be on medication for Alzheimer’s.
The test measures two proteins in the blood that tend to correlate with the existence of amyloid plaques in the brain that are often associated with Alzheimer’s.
“Those drugs treat the buildup of plaques and tangles of amyloid beta and Tau, the proteins that are examined in those tests,” Kramer says. “(The drugs) can have some pretty nasty side effects, like bleeding in the brain that nobody really wants to have happen so it doesn’t make sense to provide those drugs unless you have a positive test.”
It is also likely to be more covered by insurance and to yield fewer false positives, Briesacher adds.
There is disagreement over whether these plaques are the cause of the disease. However, Young says there is a strong enough correlation between the presence of amyloid plaques and the disease to make this a strong testing tool.
“As people live longer, this is a condition that we’re going to see more and more of,” he says. “Now we can test you early and if you do have the disease, there are things that we can offer you. That makes such a difference and that’s why it’s important to put this new development in that context. We’re stepping forward to where we have some tools now for early detection that we didn’t have before and we have some treatment that we can at least offer patients that a few years ago we couldn’t. So this is all good.