A simple blood test is being rolled out across the UK as part of a new study to detect early signs of dementia decades before it develops and help identify treatments to slow and eventually stop disease progression.
University of Cambridge scientists will use an innovative approach – piloted in Cambridge – to measure brain changes in people with dementia as an alternative to much more costly brain scans, which take longer to carry out and require specialist equipment that is not available everywhere in the country.
Initial research, led by Dr Maura Malpetti, senior research associate in Cambridge’s Department of Clinical Neurosciences, and Race Against Dementia Fellow, found that molecular changes associated with brain inflammation and dementia can also be detected in the blood. These changes can be present decades before physical dementia symptoms and are usually only picked up by brain scans.
The new trial will focus on frontotemporal dementia, but aims to help accelerate the development of treatments for other types of dementia. It will be scaled up into a national study at more than 20 research and healthcare centres across the UK to help identify who could benefit most from disease-modifying treatments.#
Dr Malpetti, a Bye-Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, said: “It’s a very exciting programme because we’re using blood tests to help unlock treatments to slow down the progression of dementia and eventually stop it. It’s also much easier for the patient than a brain scan. We’re focusing on changes to the brain which can manifest 10-20 years before symptoms, with the hope that in the future we can treat them early enough to stop the disease before symptoms occur.”
A major problem facing trials for new drugs for dementia is that they often involve patients who have received a diagnosis, which means they are already showing symptoms – but by this time, it can be too late for the drugs to make a difference.