MELBOURNE: A blood test measuring a protein linked to Alzheimer's disease may help predict the risk that cognitively unimpaired older adults will develop cognitive impairment, new research reveals.
Researchers examined the levels of a protein called phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) in plasma across six cohorts in North America, Japan and Australia. The blood test may help estimate an individual's risk of developing cognitive impairment over the following 2, 5 and 10 years, according to a summary of the study published on the Australian Science Media Center website on Wednesday.
Researchers from Australia's University of Melbourne, Harvard Medical School, and other institutions in the United States and Europe found that people with the highest levels of p-tau217 had around a 38-percent risk of progressing to cognitive impairment over five years, compared with around 12 percent among those with the lowest levels.
The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, support the potential use of p-tau217 to help predict and estimate the long-term risk of cognitive decline.
Higher p-tau217 levels were consistently associated with an increased risk of progression to cognitive impairment in cognitively unimpaired older adults, and the association remained significant after adjustment for amyloid PET imaging, according to the study. - Xinhua
