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Skin Test May Detect Alzheimer's Disease

August 15, 2006
As Baby Boomers creep closer to senior citizen status, scientists are developing promising advances in diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease. Now, researchers at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute have developed a painless skin test for Alzheimer's disease.

By isolating a substance in skin cells, the test may provide doctors with a quick and accurate yes-or-no answer when they suspect a patient is showing early signs of the disease.

In an article published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at BRNI describe a biomarker that can accurately distinguish between Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia during the first one to two years of the disease's progression.

The BRNI biomarker showed high accuracy when tested with human skin cells from a tissue bank, as well as for samples obtained in a previous, unpublished study of patients with autopsy-confirmed diagnoses. The biomarker could also potentially be used with blood samples.

"When it begins, Alzheimer's disease is often difficult to distinguish from other dementias or mild cognitive impairment," says Daniel L. Alkon, M.D., scientific director of BRNI and coauthor of the study with Tapan K. Khan, Ph.D., assistant professor.

"Potential treatments of Alzheimer's, however, are likely to have their greatest efficacy before the devastating and widespread impairment of brain function that inevitably develops after four or more years."

Many scientists have concluded in recent years that Alzheimer's effects are found throughout the body, not just in the brain. By testing for signs of Alzheimer's-related inflammation in skin cells called fibroblasts, the BRNI team has located a biomarker for the disease that can be tested without the invasive tests previously required, such as a lumbar tap.

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