Advancements in the Alzheimer Disease Field: Michael Weiner, MD

“It's just a very exciting time for our field—we've got new treatments being developed that seem to be effective, [and] we have new tests being developed, which seem to be more and more predictive. Taking everything together, we're going to find ways to be able to make more measurements among people in the community and find treatments that are effective [in slowing] the progression of Alzheimer disease and ultimately prevent it.”

The introduction of blood tests as a biomarker for Alzheimer disease (AD) has demonstrated immense potential for predicting the presence of amyloid-beta (Aß) plaque in the brain. Michael Weiner, MD, professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, medicine, psychiatry, and neurology, University of California–San Francisco, principal investigator, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, and director, Brain Health Registry, spoke with NeurologyLive about the recent advancements in blood testing, which he hopes will offer a more clinically- and cost-effective method to diagnose patients with AD. 

Weiner’s commentary follows the publication of a systematic review, published earlier this year, which evaluated predictors of Aß for this patient population. In addition to plans to update the existing review to incorporate more recent research into blood biomarkers, Weiner also hopes research will move closer towards the prevention of AD, noting that finding a way to identify at-risk people who are otherwise healthy might allow clinicians to enact treatment before the onset of symptoms. 

REFERENCE

Ashford, MT, Veitch, DP, Neuhaus, J, et al. The search for a convenient procedure to detect one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease: A systematic review of the prediction of brain amyloid status. Alzheimer's Dement. 2021;17:866–887. doi:10.1002/alz.12253