Dementia diagnostic panel launched for treatable dementia
Partnership provides first single blood test for dementia allowing a more personalized treatment strategy.
Through a collaboration between Quest Diagnostics (Madison, NJ, USA) and Athena Diagnostics (Worcester, MA, USA), the first commercially available test panel has been launched for the diagnosis of treatable forms of dementia.
The new test panel combines tests for certain treatable forms of cognitive impairment according to guidelines laid down by the American Academy of Neurology, the European Federation of Neurological Societies, the American Geriatrics Association and a National Institutes of Health Consensus Panel. A single blood test using the diagnostic test panel will provide a report that could enable physicians to take a more personalized treatment strategy to battle to cognitive dysfunctions associated with the progressive degenerative disease.
“The evaluation of suspected dementia is a significant medical challenge because many different conditions, from low TSH levels to diabetes, can cause cognitive impairment,” explained medical director for Quest Diagnostics Neurology and Athena Diagnostics, Joseph Higgins. “Our new test panel provides a standard laboratory evaluation to rule out confounders of memory or reversible causes of memory loss. Test results are useful in excluding co-morbidities and revealing potential risk factors, origin of confusional states and, sometimes, in identifying the primary cause of dementia.”
Some of the reversible causes of dementia detected by the test include anemia, diabetes and vitamin B12 deficiency. Any patients with normal results following the new test would require additional evaluation for other causes of dementia. While Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia are not detected by the test, they may be detected using other dementia diagnostic tests offered by Athena Diagnostics, such as cerebrospinal fluid biomarker testing.
The test was unveiled at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting (San Diego, CA, USA, March 16–23, 2013). Jay Wohlgemuth, Senior Vice President of science and innovation at Quest Diagnostics, commented, “We expect it will be the first of additional diagnostic information services designed to improve neurology diagnosis to emerge from collaboration with Athena Diagnostics.”
