No Active Conference

More opportunities to test for Alzheimer’s using new analytical method

Published on: Apr 09, 2025

A simpler and more cost-effective method for analyzing blood samples to detect Alzheimer’s disease has shown high accuracy in a major multicentre study led by Lund University in Sweden.

The study evaluated a blood-based biomarker, P-tau217, which begins to change years before symptoms of Alzheimer’s appear. Unlike previous highly specialized methods such as mass spectrometry, this new fully automated technique offers comparable accuracy, exceeding 90% across variables like age, gender, co-morbidities, and healthcare settings whether primary or specialized.

Conducted in Sweden, Italy, and Spain, the research involved 1,767 individuals with cognitive symptoms from both memory clinics and primary care facilities in Malmö, Gothenburg, Brescia, and Barcelona. The method used two threshold values to classify results as positive, negative, or indeterminate, improving reliability, especially in older patients.

Led by Associate Professor Sebastian Palmqvist and Professor Oskar Hansson, the findings demonstrate that even with the simpler analysis, the test remains highly effective in identifying Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Accuracy reached 92–94% in general, with only a minor decrease in the oldest patients when a single cut-off was used an issue resolved using the two-cut-off approach.

This breakthrough means that such blood tests can be implemented in smaller hospitals, significantly broadening global access to reliable Alzheimer’s diagnostics. The researchers highlight this as a crucial advancement, especially given the current lack of widespread access to biomarker-based testing.

Source: https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/more-opportunities-test-alzheimers-using-new-analytical-method#:~:text=A%20simpler%20method%20of%20analysing,the%20researchers%20behind%20the%20study.

Back to News