Beware The Hype About That Alzheimer’s Blood Test

by Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute and former JCA President

The idea that a simple blood can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease is getting an enormous amount of attention. And someday, these tests may have important benefits. But before you run to your doctor demanding a blood draw, keep in mind that this test has important limitations.

Much of the buzz is over new research by Sebastian Palmqvist (paywall) of Lund University in Sweden and co-authors. It was based on a relatively small sample of about 1200 patients in that country. It looked at only one Alzheimer’s blood test, called PrecivityAD2, among many possible alternatives. It excluded patients already diagnosed with other forms of cognitive disease. And because it used a small sample in Sweden, it could not show how the tests fared with population subgroups, such as Black or Hispanic patients.

Within those limitations, the paper found this blood test was highly accurate. Yet, the test may be valuable to real-world patients in only a relatively narrow window of the progression of Alzheimer’s. And it may have only limited practical benefit since potential treatments for Alzheimer’s remain controversial at best.

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