British scientists have identified a set of 10 proteins in the blood that can predict the onset of Alzheimer's and call this an important step toward developing a test for the incurable brain-wasting disease.
Such a test could initially be used to select patients for clinical trials of experimental treatments being developed to try to halt progression of Alzheimer's, the researchers said, and may one day move into routine use in doctors' clinics.
"Alzheimer's begins to affect the brain many years before patients are diagnosed (and) many of our drug trials fail because by the time patients are given the drugs the brain has already been too severely affected," said Simon Lovestone of Oxford University, who led this work from King's College London.