Česky
Although there is currently no ideal treatment for Alzheimer's disease, one of the major advances in the field is the identification of several serum proteins whose elevated levels allow the prediction of the development of Alzheimer's disease with up to 87% accuracy, approximately one year before the onset of the disease.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia and currently affects almost 120 000 people in the Czech Republic alone. In this disease, pathological proteins are deposited around nerve cells, causing their damage or even death. Outwardly, the disease manifests itself as memory loss, disorientation, impaired speech and expression or even a change in personality. As time passes, the difficulties get worse and more and more appear.
The study in question was conducted in the UK and published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, where it is freely available online. The study used information from three pre-existing patient cohorts to test the prognostic value of new blood tests for predicting progression from mild cognitive decline to Alzheimer's disease. And although it has already been mentioned that there is no form of therapy leading to a cure for the disease, doctors nevertheless suspect that recognising symptoms in the early stages may improve the effectiveness of existing therapies and slow the progression of the disease.
A total of 1,148 elderly patients were included in the study, including 476 with already clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease, 220 with mild cognitive decline and 452 without any signs of dementia. In these patients, doctors then investigated how differences in the levels of a total of 26 serum proteins correlated with disease progression and severity over a time frame of between 1-3 years. The patients underwent MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the brain and other standardized clinical tests. At the end of the study, the initial 26 proteins were reduced to 10 proteins for which the doctors verified a significant association with severity and disease progression in general.
The only question now is how the results of the study can be translated into practice for individual patients.
Source: Hye A, Riddoch-Contreras J, Baird AL, et al. Plasma proteins predict conversion to dementia from prodromal disease. Alzheimer's & Dementia. Published online July 8 2014
