A groundbreaking study conducted by the
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine has brought clinicians one step closer to developing a method capable of making a definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in living patients.
Last June Pitt’s Alzheimer’s disease researchers reported the discovery of a new agent—dubbed Pittsburgh Compound B or PiB—that showed promise in revolutionizing diagnosis in its early stages. (For the Pop City story, click
here.) A report published this month in the online journal
Brain confirms that PiB indeed binds to the telltale beta-amyloid deposits found in the brains of patients with the disease.
Beta amyloid is the main constituent of the plaque found in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients. Until now, an autopsy was the only way to confirm the presence of the memory-robbing brain protein, a problem that made a definitive diagnosis of the disease in the early stage impossible.
The new findings correlate PiB-identified beta-amyloid deposits of living patients to their post-mortem autopsy results, a breakthrough that will help clinicians monitor the progression of the disease and further the development of potential treatments.
“This is final confirmation of what we have believed all along – that Pittsburgh Compound-B allows us to accurately assess the amount of beta-amyloid plaques in brains of people afflicted with Alzheimer’s,” said senior author Steven DeKosky, professor of neurology, psychiatry, neurobiology and human genetics and director of the
Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Pitt.
It is estimated that up to 4.5 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s, including 50 percent of those older than age 85 and 10 percent of those over age 65. The number of those affected is expected to triple over the next 50 years.
Writer:
Deb SmitSource: Steven DeKosky, University of Pittsburgh