On 24 June, Dr Sebastian Palmqvist and collaborators published a paper in JAMA Neurology on the testing and validation of an immunoassay for two β-amyloid peptides, using blood plasma from participants in two prospective cohort studies. Altered levels of β-amyloid peptides in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or on PET scans are among the official International Working Group (IWG) criteria for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with studies showing that they can accurately diagnose AD. However, the high cost and restricted access to these two diagnostic tools limit their utility in primary care. Dr Palmqvist and colleagues therefore aimed to test a new, fully-automated Elecsys immunoassay that measures the levels of β-amyloid peptides in blood samples.
The study was performed in two stages, initially using the immunoassay to test samples from 842 participants in the Swedish BioFINDER cohort, followed by validation using samples from 237 participants in an independent German cohort. Statistical analyses showed good diagnostic accuracies when measuring two β-amyloid peptides (Aβ40 and Aβ42) using the immunoassay platform, with a further improvement in diagnostic accuracy whenAPOEgenotyping data was incorporated.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2736342
