Alzheimer's blood test 'fishes' for signs of disease

A new technique could lead to a blood test for detecting Alzheimer’s, a US study claims.

The small trial, published in the journal Cell, used thousands of artificial molecules to “fish” for the disease.

The test relies on the immune system reacting to diseased cells

Researchers hope to use this method to diagnose other diseases earlier, including lung and pancreatic cancers.

The Alzheimer’s Research Trust said it could result in a new test, but more research was needed.

The technique relies on the immune system’s ability to recognise foreign material.

Proteins on viruses and bacteria are recognised as alien so the body produces antibodies, and the same is true for Alzheimer’s.

So if you can test for the antibody, you can test for the disease – traditionally, however, this has been very hard to do.

A new approach

The team at the Florida campus of the Scripps Research Institute took blood samples from six patients with Alzheimer’s, six with Parkinson’s disease and six healthy individuals.

They then used 15,000 synthetic peptoids (the bait), to “fish” for antibodies.

In this very small sample size, the researchers found two antibodies which identified Alzheimer’s sufferers.

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: “This very early research poses a new way of testing blood to diagnose Alzheimer’s, but much more research must be done.

“We need to know how accurate and sensitive the test is and it also needs to be trialled in larger and more diverse groups of people.”

There is still no cure for Alzheimer’s, but using early testing could help with finding patients for clinical trials of future treatments.

Dr Ridley believes a test will help: “Detecting Alzheimer’s and other dementias early is essential to defeating the condition. We know that treatments for many diseases can be more effective if given early and this is likely to be true for dementia.”

Wider applications

The method was also successful in testing mice for a condition similar to multiple sclerosis and the report’s authors hope the technique can be used to detect other diseases.

Professor Thomas Kodadek, from the Scripps Research Institute, said: “If this works in Alzheimer’s disease, it suggests it is a pretty general platform that may work for a lot of different diseases. Now we need to put it in the hands of disease experts to tackle diseases where early diagnosis is key.

“Of course, this kind of simple diagnostic technology would have the biggest effect in diseases where early detection will have a significant effect on therapy, for example in various cancers.”

The researchers are now investigating whether the method works in lung and pancreatic cancers.

Reference Link : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12127930

Courtesy : BBC News

Drug may prevent lung cancer, study finds

(Reuters) – A drug approved to treat a range of conditions may also work to prevent lung cancer in people who have given up smoking, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

The drug, called iloprost, is approved in inhaled forms to treat pulmonary hypertension, when blood pools near the lungs, a connective tissue disease called scleroderma and a nerve condition called Raynaud’s phenomenon.

Dr. Robert Keith of the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center and colleagues tested an oral version to see if it might prevent lung cancer in smokers and former smokers.

“Oral iloprost showed promise for preventing lung cancer in former, but not current, smokers in a phase II clinical trial,” they wrote in a summary presented to a meeting of the American Thoracic Society in New Orleans.

Iloprost is a version of prostacyclin, a drug in the prostaglandin class that prevents lung cancer in mice.

Keith, who has been testing several drugs to prevent lung cancer, looked at biopsies taken from the lungs of 125 current and former smokers.

They treated half with placebo and half with iloprost, and then performed bronchoscopy examinations to assess precancerous changes in the lungs.

Six months later, “former smokers showed significant improvements on all measures, indicating that treatment with iloprost may reduce the risk of developing lung cancer among former smokers,” the researchers said.

“Interestingly, current smokers did not show any significant improvements,” they added.

“Oral iloprost significantly improves endobronchial dysplasia in former smokers and deserves further study to determine if it can prevent the development of lung cancer.”

ITALIAN RESEARCH

Swiss drug maker Actelion markets inhaled iloprost under the brand name Ventavis.

It is also sold in an intravenous form under the trade name Ilomedin by Schering, acquired by Merck.

In April, researchers said a natural supplement derived from food, called myo-inositol, seems to stop the precancerous changes that lead to lung cancer.

Cigarette smoke causes 90 percent of all cases of lung cancer, which kills 1.2 million people a year globally. But only about 10 percent of smokers ever develop lung cancer, although they often die of other causes like heart disease, stroke or emphysema.

Separately, Italian researchers reported that advanced lung cancer patients given the targeted therapy drug Tarceva as so-called maintenance treatment — after they finished a course of standard chemotherapy — lived a little bit longer.

Federico Cappuzzo from Ospedale Civile di Livorno in Italy and colleagues did a phase 3 trial in 889 patients who had already had chemotherapy and whose tumors had not come back.

They received either Tarceva, a drug sold by Roche and OSI Pharmaceuticals and known generically as erlotinib, or a placebo until they got worse or died.

The patients who got Tarceva lived a little longer without their tumors growing — 12 weeks versus 11 weeks on average and they lived a month longer on average — 12 months versus 11 months.

This was seen even among patients who did not have the EGFR genetic mutation that Tarceva targets, they reported in Lancet Oncology.

Fewer than half of all lung cancer patients who do well after a first course of chemotherapy get more treatment, but the Italian group said their study shows this is worth doing.

Reference Link
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64H5MR20100518?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100

Courtesy
Thomson Reuters