Research affirms high diagnostic accuracy of blood test for Alzheimer’s

ALZpath’s pTau217 test could be as accurate as invasive spinal tap, new study suggests.

Alzheimer’s diagnostics company ALZpath has announced new findings that show its proprietary blood test for Alzheimer’s disease delivers high diagnostic accuracy and consistency in identifying amyloid and tau in the brain.

The findings suggest that ALZpath’s blood-based biomarker assay for phosphorylated tau at residue 217 (handily shortened to pTau217) could be as accurate as a standard lumbar puncture, a procedure which is both invasive and incredibly painful.

My take on this: We first wrote about the idea of using pTau217 as a diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s back in 2020, quoting Eric Reiman, MD, Executive Director of Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix: “Blood tests like p-tau217 have the potential to revolutionize Alzheimer’s research, treatment and prevention trials, and clinical care.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Alzheimer’s disease is one of the areas in medicine with the highest unmet medical need, but even though new drugs are starting to become available, they slow the progression of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. This means early, accurate diagnosis is vital, and a blood test that could do that quickly and efficiently would, indeed, revolutionize Alzheimer’s treatment.

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers are considered one of the most accurate tests of Alzheimer’s pathology available, in addition to positron emission tomography (PET). However, as well as being painful and invasive, the cost is typically 2-3 times higher than blood-based testing, and is more difficult to administer at the scale that will be required with the availability of a new generation of disease-modifying treatments.

ALZpath hopes to transform Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis and monitoring, and provide accurate and accessible tools for researchers and healthcare professionals worldwide.

The study employed the ALZpath pTau217 ultra-sensitive immunoassay, developed on the Single molecule array (SimoaTM) platform in blood, and evaluated the performance of the ALZpath pTau217 assay in three independent clinical studies as part of an international collaboration between researchers in Sweden, Spain, Canada and the US. The combined studies included 786 participants.

Discover groundbreaking insights into Alzheimer's disease pathology by diving deeper in the details of the ALZpath’s pTau217 test HERE.

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