by Varshini Chellapilla
A direct-to-consumer blood test for a key Alzheimer’s biomarker may be “inevitable,” but Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB) researchers warn that receiving results from such a test comes with potential challenges.
Penn Memory Center (PMC) Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, and P3MB researcher Emily Largent, JD, PhD, RN, with co-author Anna Wexler, PhD, weighed the risks and benefits of these blood tests in a recent article for JAMA Neurology, titled “The Future is p-Tau – Anticipating Direct-to-Consumer Alzheimer’s Disease Blood Tests.”
Alzheimer’s disease has three main biomarkers, or medical indicators in the body that characterize the disease: the build-up of amyloid proteins in the brain disrupting the functions of neurons, the loss of function and structure of neurons, and tau-protein tangles formed inside neurons.
“While amyloid has historically attracted a lot of attention, in the last year, a lot of interest started to grow around blood-based biomarkers, particularly the marker of tau,” Dr. Largent said.