07/29/2024

Alzheimer’s Blood Test Shows 90 Percent Accuracy

The test outperforms other exams

A new study shows that a simple blood test can outperform traditional exams when it comes to determining whether Alzheimer’s is responsible for memory problems, accurately diagnosing the disease about 90 percent of the time.

Compare that with dementia specialists who successfully identified Alzheimer’s 73 percent of the time, while primary care doctors did so with a 61 percent rate, according to the study of 1,213 patients in Sweden that was published Sunday on JAMA, the journal published by the American Medical Association, and presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on the same day in Philadelphia.

The encouraging findings come amid larger efforts to develop a cheap, simple blood test that can quickly diagnose patients with Alzheimer’s without forcing people to undergo more expensive and invasive exams, such as spinal taps. Although blood tests are already used in clinics, they are often not covered by insurance, costing hundreds of dollars or more.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.