The first patients have been recruited to an “incredibly exciting” study seeking a blood test to revolutionise dementia diagnosis.
Experts are recruiting 3,100 people from across the UK to assess a range of blood tests, in the hope of identifying one that can accurately pick up biomarkers of early Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.
Many scientists are working on blood tests to spot the condition early, with some claiming signs can be detected decades before symptoms emerge. However, none have yet proven accurate enough to be rolled out on the NHS.
Professor Fiona Carragher, chief policy and research officer at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “I’ve spent decades working in science and the NHS and it really does feel like we’re making progress in the way we treat dementia in this country, but we can only treat people once they have that all-important diagnosis.
“This crucial bit of research is getting us closer than we’ve ever been before.”
The READ-OUT team at Dementias Platform UK (DPUK) is based at Oxford and Cambridge universities.
Oxford researcher Professor Vanessa Raymont, who is associate director of Dementias Platform UK, said: “We’re in an incredibly exciting time for dementia research right now, with new drugs that can slow early Alzheimer’s disease.
“Although these are not yet approved for use in the NHS, we urgently need to revolutionise the way we diagnose people in this country.
“It will be nothing short of disastrous if people are unable to get a diagnosis early enough to benefit from the new drugs, once they do become available. In addition, many people now want and need the more accurate diagnosis blood biomarkers could provide.”
Prof Raymont said the technology to deliver blood biomarker tests already exists. She added: “What we’re missing is the proof that they really do work in a real-world setting.
“Our team will be looking at a range of blood tests and we’ll be recruiting participants from a broad range of people including those from minority ethnic groups, the very elderly and people with other medical conditions.”
The work is part of the Blood Biomarker Challenge, funded by Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer’s Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research and others.
A second team led by Professor Jonathan Schott and Dr Ashvini Keshavan at University College London are investigating whether searching for a particular protein linked to Alzheimer’s, p-tau217, can be measured to diagnose it.
