A staff members led by Dr. Howard Federoff of the Georgetown University School of Medicine has introduced a test based upon evaluating the quantities of ten fatty chemical compounds - generally known as lipids - in the blood. As membranes of the brain tissues influenced by Alzheimer's begin to breakdown, the levels of the lipids decrease.
The Georgetown team examined blood samples from 525 volunteers, almost all whom were over the age of 70. Halfway through a five-year period, the team assimilated blood samples from 53 affected individuals who were already affected by either Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive incapacitation (MCI) with samples from 53 patients who were "cognitively normal." They found that examining the lipid amounts could estimate with 90 percent accuracy and reliability whether patients went on develop MCI or Alzheimer's within three years.
"We consider our results a major step in the direction of the commercialization of a pre-clinical health issue biomarker test that might be useful for large-scale screening to identify at-risk individuals." Dr. Federoff wrote.
Other investigators declared that providing these types of a test would certainly develop an ethical dilemma for doctors.
"Having such a test would be a remarkable improvement, but it also throws up ethical considerations," Dr. Doug Brown, director of research and development at Great Britain's Alzheimer's Society, told the Independent. "If this does develop in the future, people must be given a choice about whether they would want to know, and fully understand the implications."
No comments:
Post a Comment