TESTING for Alzheimer's disease may soon be as easy as giving blood, with a world-first blood test for the degenerative brain disorder being hailed as "revolutionary".
Scientists from Australia and Japan have developed the test, which has the potential to accurately identify people at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, up to 30 years before full-blown symptoms emerge.
Using the blood test, scientists can identify markers that show the extent of build-up of an abnormal peptide in the brain called amyloid-beta - the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease.
According to the research team, by measuring this peptide in just a few drops of blood, doctors will be able to tell, with 90 per cent accuracy, if a patient is in the early stages of dementia.
While the work is in its early stage, scientists say it could potentially lead to a readily-available blood test for Alzheimer's.
Currently diagnosis is costly and inconvenient, involving brain scans or taking fluid from the spine with a lumbar puncture.
Alzheimer's expert Colin Masters, from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, co-led the research, which was published in Nature. He said the highly sensitive blood test is "as good as, if not, better than these existing tests".
"We can finally say we have a high-performing blood test [for Alzheimer's disease>[/embedp>
He said once a person knows they have early stages Alzheimer's, and there is some cognitive impairment, they may want to make lifestyle changes, "or we may have drugs which can help in the not-so-distant future".
The test could eventually be used to predict how fast patients will deteriorate and monitor the effectiveness of treatments aimed at clearing amyloid beta.
Australian scientists worked with Nobel Prize-winning Dr Koichi Tanaka at Shimadzu Corporation, who was instrumental in developing the initial blood testing procedure. Professor Tanaka won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2002 for the technique.
Professor Masters said progress in developing new therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer's disease was "disappointingly slow".
"None of the three drugs currently on the market treat the underlying disease," he said.
"New drugs are urgently required, and the only way to do that is to speed up the whole process. That requires trials with rigorous and economical patient selection, to avoid recruiting patients who may not even have Alzheimer's disease."
