The feature of currently available Alzheimer’s drugs is that they are effective when taken after the symptoms of the disease appear. Unfortunately, currently available Alzheimer’s diagnostic methods do not have a great impact on the progression of the disease.
The studies carried out by scientists are full of promising developments for patients and their relatives. Symptoms of the disease can be detected up to 20 years before the onset of symptoms. Being able to detect the disease so early can play a big role in the treatment process.
Thanks to studies conducted in America, blood test kits that can diagnose the disease have now been developed. These kits can be purchased upon the request of the patient and doctor.
There are approximately 55 million Alzheimer’s patients worldwide.
Currently available blood tests measure two types of proteins called Amyloid-beta 42 and Amyloid-beta 40, which accumulate outside the brain. Then the ratios between these two proteins are measured. The lower the rate, the more likely a person is to contract the disease.
This test kit, developed by the PrecivityAD company, was approved by doctors in the United States for use on people showing Alzheimer’s symptoms, and the European Union declared that this test kit is safe.
So how can these test kits be used?
In patients with symptoms of the disease, doctors send a blood sample to the company PrecivityAD. It then measures the amyloid-beta ratio of this blood sample. Then, the algorithm the company has established for diagnosis obtains a result by measuring the biomarker levels of the test and taking into account the patient’s age. These results have a scoring system. If the test result shows a high score, the patient’s risk of Alzheimer’s is also high.
The PrecivityAD test has been used in several studies and has found very strong connections with symptoms of the disease. However, the findings do not mean that the disease can be detected at a hundred percent rate.
Although these tests provide us with preliminary information about the risk of contracting the disease, they do not have as strong an effect as the diagnoses and treatments of specialist doctors. However, even the development of such a test is of great importance in early diagnosis of the disease.
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