A pioneering scanning technique promises to give doctors the first accurate test for Alzheimer’s disease in living patients, allowing earlier treatment to slow the progression of the dementia-causing illness.
The technique combines a positron emission technology (PET) scan with Flutemetamol, a new compound developed by GE Healthcare that highlights parts of the brain affected by beta amyloid plaques, the accumulation of growths brought on by Alzheimer’s disease.
Final clinical trials of the technique are now underway. If researchers achieve good results as is expected, the scan could be in use by late next year.
Until now, the only way to definitively diagnose Alzheimer’s has been after patients die and their brains are examined for the beta amyloid plaques.
“What makes the results so revolutionary is that it makes both a correct and an earlier diagnosis possible for the first time,” says Dr. Francois Nicolas, director of neurology at GE Healthcare. “This could significantly increase the quality and even the length of a patient’s life.”
In the procedure, patients are injected in the arm with Flutemetamol and given a PET scan. The compound illuminates in red the areas of the brain with the beta amyloid plaques, indicating Alzheimer’s disease.
More than 26 million people around the globe have Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia. That number is expected to quadruple by 2050, according to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers.
In the United States, Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death; for people 65 and older, it is the fifth-leading cause of death, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Researchers have yet to discover what causes the illness, but many believe genetics, prior severe head injuries, and repeated exposure to aluminum may play a role.
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