New tests may help spot early-stage Alzheimer's

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - New tests assessing brain changes and body chemistry are showing promise at diagnosing Alzheimer's disease in its earliest stages, aiding the search for new drugs, researchers said on Tuesday.

In one study, Irish researchers found scans measuring brain volume and a combination of memory tests accurately identified nearly 95 percent of people who had progressed from mild cognitive impairment to early Alzheimer's disease.

In another study, U.S. researchers found that a type of brain scan that measures glucose combined with low scores on memory tests was a strong predictor of disease progression.

The findings, presented at an Alzheimer's Association meeting in Vienna, Austria, are some of the first from a five-year, $60 million study aimed at identifying brain changes that signal the advance of Alzheimer's disease.

"The idea is if there could be biological markers identified that tracked what was going on in the brain, this would give you a better idea of whether a drug was having a biological effect," Neil Buckholtz, who heads the U.S. National Institute on Aging's Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, or ADNI, said in a telephone interview.

The study, which is funded with U.S. government and industry funds, involves more than 800 people looking at brain structure and biological changes such as in spinal fluids that could signal disease progression.

Despite decades of research, doctors still have few effective treatments for Alzheimer's disease, a mind-robbing form of dementia that affects more than 26 million people globally and is expected to reach 100 million by 2050.

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