What’s the basis of the new blood test to screen for Alzheimer’s disease? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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A blood test to screen for proteins related to Alzheimer’s disease has been cleared by the FDA, and it’s designed for people who are older than 55 years of age and have cognitive symptoms. Johns Hopkins neurologist Abhay Moghekar, a blood biomarkers expert, describes how the test was assessed.

Moghekar: It's a blood test that was validated against already FDA approved PET scans and CSF cerebrospinal fluid test for Alzheimer's disease. As many people know Alzheimer's disease pathologically involves 2 main proteins amyeloid and tau. These PET scans and CSF tests are FDA approved or approved for testing the presence of amyloid in the brain and these blood tests now have been validated against those CSF and PET scans so they are a marker of amyloid in the brain.             :32

Moghekar emphasizes that the test alone is not able to make the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.