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Up to half of all people living with Alzheimer’s Disease in Ireland remain undiagnosed. Now, a new blood test may have the potential to transform patient care, allowing for better diagnosis, earlier interventions and more targeted treatments.

Researchers at St James’s Hospital, Trinity College Dublin and the Tallaght Institute of Memory and Cognition are exploring the ability of a new blood test, plasma p-tau217, to detect Alzheimer’s Disease. This test could potentially replace the current diagnostic method, a lumbar puncture (LP)/spinal tap (which is invasive and poses risks and challenges) in over half of patients with early symptoms, thus allowing more patients to be diagnosed more accurately and with greater efficiency.

The Trinity College study was a collaboration between the Immunology Department at St James’s Hospital (led by Chief Medical Scientist, Dr Jean Dunne, and Consultant Immunologist, Professor Niall Conlon) and the Tallaght Institute of Memory and Cognition at Tallaght University Hospital (Dr Adam Dyer, Specialist Registrar in Geriatric Medicine and Professor Sean Kennelly, Director). From their results, the research team believe that this new blood test could replace over half of the 150-200 diagnostic LP procedures that they currently carry out in the Tallaght Institute of Memory and Cognition every year. 

Dr Jean Dunne, Chief Medical Scientist, Department of Immunology, St James’s Hospital and Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI) said:

“This blood test is not available currently in Ireland and the findings from this research will lend support to making it available in the future. This ‘translation� from a research to a diagnostic test is dependent on the scientists, the clinical teams and the support from hospital management.

Using this automated analyser the scientists at St James’s will be able to deliver a reliable and reproducible diagnostic test result. The quality assurance carried out in the diagnostic laboratory includes comparison of results achieved to those reported internationally. All of this research will benefit the patient and the clinical teams and combines the research and diagnostic expertise to deliver a world class, patient centred service.�

The study is published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring. You can read more and view the paper in full .