Leading health systems join pioneering effort to improve Alzheimer’s diagnosis

AdventHealth is joining a collaboration with Quanterix Corporation and other leading health systems with the goal to improve and simplify Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis. These relationships further the company’s goal to build the global infrastructure necessary for Alzheimer’s testing by expanding clinical access to Quanterix’s leading blood biomarker tests.

In addition to AdventHealth, Mass General Brigham, the Mayo Clinic, the Medical University of South Carolina and UPMC will leverage Quanterix technology and tests to streamline care for Alzheimer’s patients. Quanterix is a Massachusetts-based company specializing in biomarker detection.

Blood-based biomarker testing offers Alzheimer’s patients a non-invasive method and greater access to testing overall. Traditionally, diagnosis has relied on a combination of symptom presentation, brain imaging, and the detection of biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid. This approach is not only burdensome and invasive for patients, but also costly, making them unsuitable for most primary and secondary care settings. This inaccessibility has left 50-70% of symptomatic Alzheimer’s patients without a correct and timely diagnosis.

“New resources available to aid in diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease have contributed to a more optimistic environment for AD patient care,” said Kirk Erickson, PhD, director of translational neuroscience at the AdventHealth Neuroscience Institute. “With simplified, affordable, non-invasive testing methods, physicians can proactively evaluate and monitor patients with memory concerns. The availability of blood-based biomarker testing to the AdventHealth network has the potential to help a wide population concerned about mild cognitive impairment and aid physicians in their diagnosis.”

Read more here.