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Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

medicalxpress.com

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Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#61

Post by raincole »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. If it turns out that driving a Prius on Tuesdays slows down Alzheimer’s, a larger pool of subjects would allow u…

> doctors correctly diagnosed Alzheimer's in 75.5% of cases, but when incorporating blood test results, diagnostic accuracy increased to 94.5%

These patients are already seeing doctors. Would you rather your doctor to hide the diagnosis just because your disease isn't curable (for now)? It's not like we're testing the whole population in masse.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#62

Post by rustyhancock »

shevy-java wrote: post #55

Alarm bells go up. 94.5% in itself is suspicious. It insinuates precision. I highly doubt you can go anywhere near 0.5% correctness.

It says "accuracy". For the overall assessment.

I.e. it needs the original 75% accuracy or so and boosts it another 20%.

The problem is that the assessment itself is slow, expensive and requires skill.

What we really want from a test is high specificity (a positive test means you have accuracy) and high sensitivity (if you get a negative test you don't have it).

This is how we can offer screening.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#63

Post by TheCapeGreek »

PSA to those with family affected by dementia/Alzheimer's at a relatively early age (say Left untreated for a very long time (decade+), it spreads to the brain and causes dementia among other things. Older generations with stigmas, taboos, or from lower educational backgrounds seem (to me) less likely to get tested, so it seems plausible.

Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their neurologist.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#64

Post by raincole »

shevy-java wrote: post #55

Alarm bells go up. 94.5% in itself is suspicious. It insinuates precision. I highly doubt you can go anywhere near 0.5% correctness.

> Compared with the final diagnosis, the pre-biomarker diagnosis was maintained in 71/200 cases (75.5%) (Kappa = 0.576), while the post-biomarker diagnosis was maintained in 189/200 cases (94.5%) (Kappa = 0.906).

Even without this method, the doctors have been able to give diagnosis with 75.5% accuracy (according to the paper's claim).

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#65

Post by foobiekr »

janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

I want to know so that I can make plans. Including end of life plans, in all senses.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#66

Post by KingMob »

shevy-java wrote: post #55

Alarm bells go up. 94.5% in itself is suspicious. It insinuates precision. I highly doubt you can go anywhere near 0.5% correctness.

> 94.5% in itself is suspicious

No it's not, that's a reported mean, presumably with the right number of significant digits.

If you want to criticize the variance/stddev, do so, but you picked the wrong metric if that's what you wanted to complain about.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#67

Post by DavidSJ »

ulfw wrote: post #38
Baeocystin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know two people who have been taking the new monoclonal antibody treatment for it. One who was a bit further along when she started, and did not show any significant improvement. The one who started while she was still in the early stages has completely arrested her descent. She hasn't recovered much of what she already lost, but she's still able to live independently and enjoy life, and her mental acuity scores ar…

How do you know it's completely arrested? Best these type of drugs can do is give you a few months extra window (say 4-6 months). They're not a cure. Sadly.

That's 4–6 months in the 18 months the trials lasted for, i.e. about a 30% slowdown of progression. The open-label extensions suggest this relative slowdown seems to continue at least to the 4-year mark (at which point it would have bought you over a year of time): https://www.alzforum.org/news/conference-coverage/signs-last...

Time will tell if the 30% slowdown continues beyond four years, and/or if earlier treatment with more effective amyloid clearance from newer drugs has greater effects. The science suggests it should.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#68

Post by Someone »

janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” isn’t the same as “We have no cure. We as a society don’t want to know.”

People can be fine with being tested so that epidemiologists can work on growing our knowledge and, at the same time, not wanting to know their own diagnosis.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#69

Post by iamflimflam1 »

foobiekr wrote: post #65
janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

I want to know so that I can make plans. Including end of life plans, in all senses.

Exactly - there are things that I would change now to make sure I make thing easier for myself and - more importantly - easier for the people around me.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#70

Post by matwood »

ulfw wrote: post #38
Baeocystin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know two people who have been taking the new monoclonal antibody treatment for it. One who was a bit further along when she started, and did not show any significant improvement. The one who started while she was still in the early stages has completely arrested her descent. She hasn't recovered much of what she already lost, but she's still able to live independently and enjoy life, and her mental acuity scores ar…

How do you know it's completely arrested? Best these type of drugs can do is give you a few months extra window (say 4-6 months). They're not a cure. Sadly.

The way I’ve watched Alzheimer’s work in a family member is that it’s a step down function rather than gradual. And once something is lost, it doesn’t come back. So anything that can delay the next step even just for months is a win right now.
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