New International Standard for Alzheimers Diagnosis Released

Researchers from Gothenburg University in Gothenburg, Sweden, have developed a reference method for standardized measurements that has classified as the international standard for Alzheimers diagnostics.

Researchers Henrik Zetterberg, MD, PhD, and Kaj Blennow, MD, PhD, professors at the Swedish school, developed a method that measures the exact amount of beta amyloid in spinal fluid, and diagnose Alzheimers disease by as much as 10 years to 30 years before symptoms become apparent.
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The authors of this new method note that beta amyloid built in the brain of a healthy individual is quickly moved to the spinal fluid and blood. In Alzheimers patients, however, beta amyloids remain in the brain, clustering and damaging the synapses, which results in brain and nerve cell death. While this process may begin as soon as middle age, it may go undetected for decades, by which time the nerve cells are damaged to the extent that symptoms appear in the form of compromised cognitive abilities and memory disorders.

“If the concentration of beta amyloid in the spinal fluid is abnormally low, it indicates that the protein is sticking in the brain, which is the earliest sign of Alzheimers disease,” said Zetterberg, in a statement.  

The method is the result of decades’ worth of research that Zetterberg and Blennow have undertaken, and has been completed “within the framework of a global cooperation project that we head,” according to Zetterberg. This advancement, they say, coincides with studies that show encouraging results for different drug candidates that target beta amyloids.

These drugs, said Blennow, “will likely prove most effective for persons who have just begun to accumulate beta amyloids in their brain. Then a well-proven and standardized method becomes crucial, as it ensures that these people are identified in a diagnostically safe and precise manner.”

—Mark McGraw