A blood test has been developed that may potentially facilitate detection of Alzheimer's disease at an early stage and it is based on an immuno-chemical analysis using an infrared sensor.
A major problem of Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis is the fact that, by the time the first clinical symptoms appear, massive irreversible damage to the brain has already occurred and at that point, symptomatic treatment is the only available option.
Scientists at the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) and their colleagues analyzed the secondary structure of Amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood plasma of 141 patients which was measured with an immuno-infrared-sensor. The sensor's surface is coated with highly specific antibodies which extract biomarkers for Alzheimer's from the blood or the CSF, taken from the lower part of the back. The infrared sensor analyses of the biomarkers showed pathological changes, which can take place more than 15 years before any clinical symptoms appear.
