New Clinical Guideline Supports Some Blood Tests For Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis

MedPage Today (7/29, Gever) reports a clinical guideline from the Alzheimer’s Association unveiled at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference states that “blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers can be used clinically – and can replace expensive brain scans and invasive cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling – as long as they meet strict criteria for sensitivity and specificity.” The guideline says that “tests with at least 90% sensitivity and 75% specificity for a definitive Alzheimer’s diagnosis can be used for initial triaging...in which a negative finding rules out the condition and positive result leads to additional testing.” Furthermore, “tests with at least 90% sensitivity and 90% specificity can be used alone to make an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, without resorting to PET scans or CSF sampling.” Regardless, patients in all cases should still receive a “comprehensive clinical examination” to establish they have some type of cognitive disorder that could be Alzheimer’s disease. The study was also published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.