'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#2The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t see why this test would be used clinically while we can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s.
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#3The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t see why this test would be used clinically while we can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s.
Useless to whom? It would be somewhat arrogant to suppose that some people would not prefer to make arrangements for their family and themselves in the light of a diagnosis. Might they not have one of the 'X things to do before you die' books and feel like following it up while they have the opportunity? Moreover it may be that new treatment arrives that optimally only works in the very first stages as detected by this test.
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#4The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t see why this test would be used clinically while we can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s.
> Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless.
Until we have better cryopreservation
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#5The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t see why this test would be used clinically while we can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s.
I don't think that it necessarily is useless. My grandfather is starting to experience memory loss, and he's not sure if he has Alzheimer or not, there is a family history. If he knew, that would make financial planning potentially much easier. He's always talking about whether he should travel now, or leave money in the bank for nursing home care. If he could know, maybe it would hurt, but it would help as well.
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#6The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t see why this test would be used clinically while we can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s.
I can imagine it would be useful for the development of new therapies to test them on early-stage patients.
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#7The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t see why this test would be used clinically while we can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s.
1. Because people want to know for lots of reasons like financial planning or "bucket listing".
2. The more people who know sooner, the more we might learn about the disease, how it progresses,
and the genetics of the people who acquire it.Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#8The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t see why this test would be used clinically while we can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s.
Useless to whom? It would be somewhat arrogant to suppose that some people would not prefer to make arrangements for their family and themselves in the light of a diagnosis. Might they not have one of the 'X things to do before you die' books and feel like following it up while they have the opportunity? Moreover it may be that new treatment arrives that optimally only works in the very first stages as detected by th…
I agree with your last point. An early detection tool can help find a treatment/cure that works before the disease progresses too far. Again, I see the use for research purposes. While writing my original comment, I specifically had WHO's Wilson criteria in mind (http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/4/07-050112/en/). The 2nd point requires that there needs to be a treatment in order to screen for a disease.
The current time from diagnosis of Alzheimer's to death is about 8 years (with some variability) with a relatively slow progression of symptoms. It's possible that some people may want extra time to make arrangements like you say, but this comes at the cost of living without knowing whether you have Alzheimer's. I've never been in this situation, but I can't imagine that this tradeoff is clear-cut for anyone.
I think my gripe with the article is that it claimed this test will "promptly be used clinically". I seriously doubt this. The article doesn't report the sensitivity or specificity of the test, and we don't have a great sense of how early this test can detect Alzheimer's.
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#9This sounds almost too good to be true. It's published in a lower impact journal so I'm wondering if the sample size was very small. Also, how did they confirm the 'topography of the pathophysiology' (where the disease is) without taking people's scalps off?
Re: 'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms
#10This sounds almost too good to be true. It's published in a lower impact journal so I'm wondering if the sample size was very small. Also, how did they confirm the 'topography of the pathophysiology' (where the disease is) without taking people's scalps off?
Looks like n=20 from skimming. MEG and MRI scans were used.